Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) is an aromatic and medicinal plant that contains up to 3% essential oil, whose aroma is dominated by the phenyl propanoids methyl chavicol (also called Estragol) and its isomer anethol. In order to study the impacts of various drying methods on drying time and qualitative characteristics of tarragon, an experiment was conducted based on completely randomized design with six replications at the Special Crop Laboratory, College of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during year of 2012. Leaves dried at three temperature with oven (30, 40 and 60°C) and natural methods (shaded and sunny airs). The drying process was continued until the moisture content of leaves reduced about 10% based on dry weight. The results indicated that the effects of different drying methods were significant (p≤0.01) on essential oil and Estragol contents of tarragon. By increasing in oven temperature declined drying time for leaves. The maximum Esragol and essential oil contents were observed in shaded air (with 2.9 and 69.8%, respectively) and their minimum were in 60°C oven (with 1.1 and 24.8%, respectively).

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