Solar - biomass hybrid drying system was designed and installed as per design specifications at the department of unconventional energy sources and electrical engineering, dr. panjabrao deshmukh krishi vidyapeeth, akola. (ms) india. the no load testing and thermal profile inside the solar tunnel dryer indicated proper design and orientation of the dryer and proper positioning of the chimneys with uniform temperature distribution suitable for drying of turmeric rhizomes. in solar biomass hybrid dryer the best ranked thin layer drying model applicable to the variation of moisture ratio with drying time of turmeric samples were page model,two term model and modified henderson and pabis model, logarithmic model for turmeric dried in sbhd. the overall efficiency of biomass combustor for hot air generation was found to be 79.79 per cent. it is revealed that biomass combustor was able to produce sufficient hot air for drying of turmeric slices. the important quality parameter curcumin and oleoresin content in turmeric was found in the range of 2.91 to 3.81 and 6.24 to 9.54 per cent in sbhd as compare to 1.99 to 3.28 and 4.93 to 9.16 per cent, respectively in osd. the recovery of curcumin and oleoresin was found better in std and sbhd system. it was found that method of curing and drying did not affect the volatile oil and protein content but curcumin and oleoresin content increased in turmeric dried in std and sbhd than osd. the blanching and peeling caused a pigments and higher hunter cie l*, a* and b* values and the samples dried in sbhd and std was obtained higher value of yellow and red color than dried in osd. on the basis of economic analysis it was concluded that drying of 0.5 cm processed and fresh slice, 3.0 cm cut processed and whole processed turmeric seems to be economical drying operation in sbhd. the total energy saving revealed that overall saving of energy was 39 to 44 per cent in std and sbhd over electrically operated tray drying system.