the effect of five drying methods on the essential oil content and composition of rosa foetida herrm. was studied for incorporation into a post-harvesting program for medicinal and perfumery industries. the drying methods tested were sun drying (sd), closed shade drying (csd), oven drying at 40^0c (od40) and 60^0c (od60) and microwave drying (md). the essential oils from fresh and dried samples were isolated by hydrodistillation and analyzed by a gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (gc-fid) and gc-mass spectrometry (gc-ms). the drying method had a significant effect on the essential oil content (w/w%) in the order of: csd (0.28%) > sd (0.20%) > od40 (0.18%) > od60 (0.14%) > md (0.05%). in total, twenty-three, thirteen, eight, twelve, ten and twelve constituents were identified and quantified in fresh, csd, sd, od40, od60 and md samples, representing 93.4%, 97.5%, 97.3%, 97.4%, 98.0% and 96.7% of the total oil, respectively. the major components of all samples were n-nonadecane (25.8-56.4%), n-heneicosane (16.7-24.4%), 1-hexadecanol (14.5-19.7%), n-tetradecanol (1.5-6.8%) and z-octadecadienal (1.0-5.2%). our results showed that the drying method not only had an effect on the number of chemical components, but also significantly influenced the proportion of various constituents.