How many lbs of Fresh Moringa leaves does it take to produce 1 lb of powder?
I had believed incorrectly for over a year that it took 7 lbs of fresh Moringa leaves to make 1 lb of Moringa powder. I had read this on a few websites and heard others talk about this 7:1 ratio, too.
In August, I purchased an Excalibur 4-Tray Dehydrator
 to do some controlled leaf drying tests. I wanted to know how many lbs of fresh Moringa leaves it took to produce 1 lb of Moringa leaf powder.  After harvesting a few branches, the branches and leaves were washed and then shook vigorously to dry. The leaves were then stripped from the branches and weighed as they were loaded on the dehydrator trays. The dehydrator was set to 115 ºF, and tray weights were recorded every 15 minutes. After 2 hours, the tray weights had stabilized. The leaves were left in the dryer for 1 more hour to confirm they were indeed dry. After removing the leaves from the dehydrator, the final weight of the dried leaves was recorded. This allowed me to calculate and confirm that, yes, it really did take 7 lbs of fresh leaves to make 1 pound of dry leaves.  Or did it?
In September, I harvested about 9 lbs of fresh Moringa leaves. I was testing a solar dryer I had designed and built. Thinking it took 7 lbs of fresh Moringa leaves to make 1 lb of dry leaves, I was expecting to get about 1.25 lbs of dried leaves. To my surprise, the final weight was nearly 2 lbs of dried leaves. Thinking I must not have dried the leaves long enough, I put some of the leaves back in the dryer. At the end of the day, my numbers hadn’t changed.
I couldn’t understand why I was getting 1 lb of dry powder with only 4.5 lbs of fresh leaves. Â I decided to look up the moisture content of the leaves again and mathematically figure it out.
Fresh Moringa oleifera leaves have a moisture content of 75–80%. Dried leaves have a moisture content of 10% or less. That means that 1 lb of fresh Moringa has 0.20–0.25 lbs of dry matter, and 1 lb of dried Moringa consists of about 0.90 lbs of dry matter. Therefore, at an 80% moisture level in the leaves, it takes 4.5 lbs of fresh leaves to make 1 lb of dried leaves (0.90 lb / 0.20 lb = 4.5). Likewise, if we start with a 75% moisture level in the leaves, it takes 3.6 lbs of fresh leaves to make 1 lb of dried leaves (0.90 lb / 0.25 lb = 3.6).
But doesn’t it take 7 lbs of fresh leaves to make 1 lb of dry? Didn’t I witness that in my test from August and read it numerous places?
Here is my explanation. I believe people making the claim, “it takes roughly 7 lbs of fresh Moringa to make 1 lb of powder,” make the same mistake I did. They weigh the leaves before the drying process starts but after they have washed and rinsed the leaves. Â At that point, the leaves have excess moisture on them. Â This causes an artificially high initial weight to be recorded when the Moringa leaves start the drying process. Â The 7:1 ratio would be true if Moringa leaves contained 87% moisture; and, I believe, after washing, rinsing, and vigorously shake drying, they likely do.
To confirm my theory I tested drying fresh Moringa leaves without washing them first. It took 4 lbs of fresh leaves to produce 1 lb of dried!
So, regardless of how wet or dry Moringa leaves are when the drying process starts, it’s important to know that it takes roughly 3.5 – 4.5 lbs of harvested Moringa leaves to end up with 1 lb of dried leaves.
What do you think? Have you dried Moringa leaves? How many lbs of fresh Moringa leaves did it take you to make 1 lb of dried leaves?  Please comment below.
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Have a question, how many Ib powder can make from 10.000 trees?
Hi have a question how many kilograms of of dried moringa leaves can you get from an hector
1 lb dried leaves +1 lb powder but needs 3.5 to 4.5 lbs of fresh leaves right?
Yes, it takes 3.5-4.5 lbs of fresh leaves to produce 1 lb of dry powder.
Excellent calculation and findings. Thank you very much for all the calculations and information’s.
Hi! How much lb of dried leaves would give 1lb of moringa powder.. If you have data on this please share.
Hello, so the dry powder should be made from 100% pure dried Moringa leaves. Therefore 1 lb of dried powder requires 1 lb of dried Moringa leaves to make.
i really thank you for correct information by giving the exact weights of both green and dry moringa
How many hours it will take to dry in Sun I kept those in to my house upstairs so let me know please
Saiteja, drying time depends on many factors such as wind, relative humidity, loading of leaves (lbs/sq.ft or kg/m2) and how often you mix the leaves during the drying process. I recommend you shade dry Moringa to preserve more nutrients. That being said you should be able to dry leaves in the sun in 1 day or less. In the shade it may take a few days depending on conditions. During the rainy season with very high relative humidity drying the leaves before they mold can be a real issue.
Mark, which is more nutritious dried moorings powder or fresh morning leaves and what’s the reason behind it?
I meant dried moringa powder vs fresh moringa leaves.
Pete, fresh is more nutritious than dried but it’s easy to confuse the comparison as 1 lb of dried Moringa started out as 4 lbs of fresh Moringa. Therefore comparing 1 lb of dry to 1 lb of fresh the dried looks more nutrient dense. Check out So Just How Nutritious is Moringa Oleifera? for more info.
Hi Mark, very nice Website of yours 😉
Yes, I agree with you, I have made several tests measuring the amount of dried leaves you get from fresh leaves, and I also have ca 25% of dried leaves from fresh leaves.
The washing is one thing, another could be if you include removing stems and twigs during the process (this makes information on the internet regarding yield per ha difficult to interpret)
Best regards from Switzerland … 😉
Wolfgang,
You bring up a great point. If the harvest weight of branches and small stems is included in the fresh “leaf” weight the results will be drastically different! Sounds like you are growing Moringa in Switzerland? I would love to hear more about it!