=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2761/HAICTA_2020_paper80
|storemode=property
|title=Could Irrigation and N-fertilization Affect Saffron Yield?
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2761/HAICTA_2020_paper80.pdf
|volume=Vol-2761
|authors=Kyriakos Giannoulis,Elpiniki Skoufogianni,Dimitrios Bartzialis,Alexandra Solomou,Anastasia Malamoglou,Nicholaos Danalatos
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/GiannoulisSBSMD20
}}
==Could Irrigation and N-fertilization Affect Saffron Yield?==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2761/HAICTA_2020_paper80.pdf
Could Irrigation and N-fertilization Affect Saffron
Yield?
Kyriakos D. Giannoulis1, Elpiniki Skoufogianni1, Dimitrios Bartzialis1, Alexandra
D. Solomou2, Anastasia Malamoglou1, Nicholaos G. Danalatos1
1
University of Thessaly, Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural
Environment. Fytocou Str., 38446 Volos, Greece; e-mails: kgiannoulis@uth.gr;
kyriakos.giannoulis@gmail.com
2
Institute of Mediterranean and Forest Ecosystems, Hellenic Agricultural Organization
“Demeter”, N. Chlorou 1, 11528, Athens, Greece
Abstract. Crocus sativus belongs to the Iridaceae family, and it is known as
saffron. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of irrigation and N-
fertilization on the produced number and weight of flowers and stigmas. A field
experiment was established for the purposes of the study in a clay loam soil of
moderately fertile on 2018 while the results concern measurements made in
2019. A split-plot experimental design was used with main factor the irrigation
(I1: rainfed, I2: 75% ETo and I3: 100% ETo) and sub-factor the N-fertilization
(N1: 0, N2: 40 and N3: 80 kg ha-1 of the 35-0-0) under 9 replications. It was
found that 1 kg of dried stigmas is produced through an average of 159.000
flowers. Irrigation was found to be the factor which affected positively the
flower number and led to a doubling of stigmas yield, while N-fertilization did
not have any statistically significant difference.
Keywords: saffron; irrigation; n-fertilization; stigmas; yield.
1 Introduction
A perennial aromatic and pharmaceutical crop, member of the Iridaceae family
(Arslan et al., 2013), which has been used as a spice and in traditional medicine is
Crocus sativus L. Crocus is worldwide known as saffron and it is cultivated in many
hectares in Iran resulting in the increase of farmers income (Mashayekhi et al., 2006;
Mollafilabi, 2006). Saffron is also cultivated in Mediterranean basin and India
(Fernandez, 2004) and it prefers mild winter and dry-hot summers. Saffron anthesis
period lasts from 10 to 25 days extremely depending on climatic conditions (middle of
October till the first ten days of November). Crocus propagation take place only by
corms and each plant can reach 20–30 cm height (Mehraj et al., 2015).
Saffron product is the stigmas of the flowers, and its yield and flower number are
depended on irrigation and nutrient supply, on plant density as well as on the day and
night site temperature (Gresta et al., 2009; Kumar et al., 2009; Mollafilabi et al., 2013;
Koocheki et al., 2014; Koocheki and Seyyedi, 2015; Behdani et al., 2016). Saffron
yield varies according to growing site and it is reported that dried stigmas yield ranges
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from 2 to 29 kg ha-1 (Alonso et al., 2000) which results in 90-2,175 of fresh flowers
(Vignolini et al., 2008; Schmidt et al., 2007; Serrano-Diaz et al., 2012).
Crocus has many uses. Except for medicine industry, it is used in food industry, in
distillery and in coloring (Javadi et al. 2013). Crocus stigmas is the most expensive
worldwide agricultural product worldwide (Gohari et al., 2013; Lim, 2014), which has
also increased cultivation costs due to the requirement of hand labor during its harvest
period (Gresta et al., 2008).
The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of irrigation and nitrogen
fertilization on Crocus sativus L yield during its second growing year.
2 Materials and Methods
A field experiment was established in Neos Skopos, Serres in a clay loam soil of
moderately fertile, alkaline and high in phosphorus in August 2018. The results
concern the measurements made in October 2019 where the cultivation was in the
second growing year.
A split plot experimental design was used with main factor the irrigation (I1: rainfed,
I2: 75% ETo and I3: 100% ETo) and sub-factor the n-fertilization (N1: 0, N2: 40 and
N3: 80 kg ha-1 of the 35-0-0) under 9 replications (blocks). A basic fertilization with
400 kg ha-1 of the 11-15-15 took place in March for all plots. Water supply was carried
out during September-October using a micro-sprinkler irrigation system (Pall Special
Spray with characteristics 33L*h-1) and the water quantity was 48 mm and 36 mm for
the full irrigated treatments (100% ETo) and the reduced irrigated treatments (75%
ETo) respectively.
All measures (number of flowers, fresh flower weight and stigmas fresh and dry
weight) were taken during harvest period (20 days harvest period at the end of October
till the middle of November for both years) on a daily basis, from the center lines of
each plot cutting 1 m2 so as to avoid any border effect, while the rest of the flowers of
the plot were moved. Samples were weighed at once (flower and stigmas weight) and
then stigmas were air dried.
All measures were analyzed using the statistical package GenStat (7th Edition) and
the LSD.05 was used as the test criterion for assessing differences between means (Steel
and Torrie, 1982) of the main and/or interaction effects.
3 Results and Discussion
3.1 Number and fresh weight of flowers
As it has been mentioned the soil of the study area is moderately fertile, alkaline
and high in phosphorus, which is ideal for crocus cultivation due to its high P-content
(Daneshmandi and Seyyedi, 2019).
In the case of the number of flowers collected during the harvest period, there was
found a significant statistical difference was found between the rainfed and the
527
irrigated treatments (Table 1) with the maximum flower number (324 flowers per m2)
for the full irrigation. In the case of the N-fertilization and the interaction of irrigation
with N-fertilization, no significant statistical differences were found. The higher
number per m2 was found in the case of full irrigated and unfertilized treatments (I3N1;
Table 1).
As it was expected due to the higher flower number for the irrigated treatments, the
fresh weight of the flowers was also statistically significant higher in the same
treatments (Table 1). It was also noticed that even if the higher flower number was
found in the case of full irrigated and unfertilized treatments (I3N1), the higher fresh
weight was found in the case of the full irrigated treatments of the higher N-
fertilization (I3N3; Table 1).
Table 1. Saffron quantitative characteristics as affected by irrigation and N-fertilization.
Flower F. Weight F. Weight D. Weight
Number Flowers Stigmas Stigmas
/ m2 (kg/ha) (kg/ha) (kg/ha)
I1 205 137 68.2 11.8
I2 309 236 115.1 19.1
I3 324 255 122.8 22.4
LSD.05 58.5 54 23.11 5.78
N1 294 204 105.8 19.6
N2 263 189 96.7 16.4
N3 281 235 103.7 17.3
LSD.05 ns ns ns Ns
I1N1 201 131 66.6 10.8
I1N2 214 132 72 11.1
I1N3 201 148 66.1 13.5
I2N1 344 242 125.9 22.7
I2N2 251 189 92.7 15.9
I2N3 331 277 126.7 18.7
I3N1 338 238 124.8 25.3
I3N2 325 247 125.3 22.1
I3N3 309 281 118.4 19.8
LSD.05 ns ns ns Ns
CV (%) 19.9 27.1 21.7 21.8
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3.2 Fresh and dry weight of stigmas
Fresh and dry weight of stigmas was statistically significant higher in the case of
irrigated treatments, while N-fertilization did not have statistically significant effect.
Maximum dry weight (25.3 kg ha-1) was produced for the full irrigated treatment
without N-fertilization (I3N1; Table 1). Furthermore, it was noticed that N-fertilization
had a negative effect producing lower dry stigmas yield comparing to the control.
Finally, it was found that full irrigation yielded double dry stigmas production
compared to rainfed treatments.
Ghanbari et al. (2019), reported that flower number is the most important
characteristic affecting stigma yield. Moreover, it is reported that an average of
160.000 saffron flowers are needed to produce 1 kg of dried stigmas (Schmidt et al.,
2007; Vignolini et al., 2008), which is in agreement with the findings of the current
study where an average of 159.000 flowers produced 1 kg of dried stigmas.
Moreover, the influence of intensive agronomic practices such as irrigation which
strongly affects stigmas yield is also reported (Gresta et al., 2009; Koocheki et al.,
2014; Behdani et al., 2016) and was also found in the current study.
4 Conclusions
It was found that 1 kg of dried stigmas is produced through an average of 159.000
flowers, which indicates that flower number is the most important feature of Crocus
sativus L., and the reason for the high selling price of the saffron product considering
the effort it takes to harvest this number of flowers. Irrigation was found to be the
factor which affected the flower number positively and led to a doubling of stigmas
yield, while N-fertilization did not any have any statistically significant difference. As
a general conclusion could be that Crocus sativa L., is a promising perennial crop
characterized by satisfactory yield with irrigation being the most crucial factor.
Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the Department of Agriculture, Crop
Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, Greece.
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