Methods for efficiently drying agricultural products are an ever-increasing demand. Due to its rapid and thorough dehydrating ability, microwave techniques were used to evaluate the thin-layer drying kinetics of organic ginger and mango ginger. Microwave drying characteristics, efficiency and indices determined with respect to sample thickness, microwave output power and sample load revealed higher power (300 W), lesser thickness (0.001 m) and load (25 g), increased drying rates and reduced drying time. Effective diffusivity values were found within the range reported in literatures (9.17 × 10 -11 and 11.6 × 10 -11 m 2 s -1). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) images revealed that the surface morphology and the elemental composition gradually degraded during drying. The ability of eight different thin-layer mathematical models was evaluated for representing the experimental drying profiles. Among the eight new models derived from the basic diffusion model, statistical analysis inferred that the modified diffusion model no. 4 could predict most accurately changes in drying behavior of organic ginger and mango ginger rhizomes for all drying conditions applied. Copyright © 2010 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.