Agriculture
Seyed Mohammad Moosavipoor; Hassan Feizi; hossein sahabi; Hamid-reza Fallahi
Abstract
Recognizing the potential role of seaweed in improving saffron yield and the utilization of micronutrient elements like Ca, Mg, Fe, and Mn to enhance stigma yield, an experiment was conducted. The study investigated the impact of foliar spraying of seaweed extract and selected nutritional elements on ...
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Recognizing the potential role of seaweed in improving saffron yield and the utilization of micronutrient elements like Ca, Mg, Fe, and Mn to enhance stigma yield, an experiment was conducted. The study investigated the impact of foliar spraying of seaweed extract and selected nutritional elements on saffron's quantitative and qualitative traits of saffron.This research was conducted, as factorial based on a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications during 2021-2022 in Neishabur, Iran. The first factor consisted of seaweed extract (0 and 2 L.ha-1) and the second factor consisted of foliar application of nutrients including no foliar application (as control), and the defender of some elements including iron (1.5 L.ha-1 containing Fe, N, and amino acids), zinc, boron (1 L.ha-1 containing B and amino acids), manganese (1.5 L.ha-1 containing Mn, Zn and S), magnesium and calcium (2 L.ha-1 containing Ca and N). The use of all nutrients compared to the control (no-nutrients) and the use of seaweed extract compared to no-seaweed application caused an increase in flower and stigma yields. Based on the interaction effects of the experimental factors, the highest number of flowers (68.8 No.m-2) was obtained in the combined application of manganese and seaweed extract, the highest flower yield (33.5 g.m-2) was gained with the combined application of seaweed and boron, and the highest dry stigma yield (0.48 g.m-2) was obtained from the simultaneous application of magnesium and seaweed extract, which were 63.8, 16.7 and 17.0%, more than the control treatment (no-seaweed & No-nutrients), respectively. Without nutrient application, the utilization of seaweed extract resulted in a notable rise in the Picrocrocin content of the stigma by 15.9%, Crocin by 9.5%, and Safranal by 10.6% compared to the absence of seaweed application.Combined consumption of calcium with seaweed increased the content of Picrocrocin and Crocin, while simultaneous application of other nutrients with seaweed did not improve these indices. The highest and the lowest content of Safranal (37.7 and 32.35 absorption at 330 nm) were obtained from magnesium + no-seaweed and control (no-seaweed & no-nutrients) treatments, respectively. Overall, although all of the studied elements combined with seaweed extract improved stigma yield in order to increase stigma yield, application of Mg in combination to seaweed recommended and to enhance saffron quality using seaweed suggested.
Biotechnology and genetics
Mehdi Hassanlou; Mohammad Reza Azimi Moghaddam; Seyed Alireza Salamii; Ehsan Mohsenifard
Abstract
Cultivated saffron (Crocus sativus L.) boasts remarkable commercial value due to its possessing three pivotal metabolites: crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal. The significance of obtaining these metabolites, particularly crocin, from sources other than cultivated saffron has grown substantially, primarily ...
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Cultivated saffron (Crocus sativus L.) boasts remarkable commercial value due to its possessing three pivotal metabolites: crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal. The significance of obtaining these metabolites, particularly crocin, from sources other than cultivated saffron has grown substantially, primarily driven by native wild saffron species in Iran. In this ongoing study, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) has been harnessed as a potent analytical tool for the identification of these metabolites in two wild saffron species, Khazar (C. caspius) and Ziba (C. specious), alongside the cultivated variety. Furthermore, bioinformatics tools have been employed to extract nucleotide and protein sequences, thereby facilitating the prediction of protein structures for genes integral to the biosynthesis process of these notable apocarotenoids in an in-silico manner. The research findings have showcased the presence of crocin across all analyzed samples, albeit in varying quantities. Specifically, the crocin content in the cultivated saffron, Ziba, and Khazar species accounted for 26.76%, 2.8%, and 0.74% of dry weight matter, respectively. However, the amount of picrocrocin and safranal metabolites in cultivated species was 8.4 and 0.03 percent, respectively, but there were no detectable amounts of these apocarotenoids in the studied wild species. , The existence of crocin in wild species has made hope for conducting research and searching in wild species for these effective substances and implementing breeding programs or genetic manipulation for the mentioned species.
Biotechnology and genetics
Mehdi Hassanlou; Mohammad Reza Azimi Moghaddam; Seyed Alireza Salami; Ehsan Mohsenifard
Abstract
Agricultural saffron Crocus sativus L. is a medicinal, widely used and expensive plant and has important effective substances: crocin, picrocrocin and safranal, which gives it the characteristics of color, taste and smell. The search for new sources producing the aforementioned apocarotenoids makes the ...
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Agricultural saffron Crocus sativus L. is a medicinal, widely used and expensive plant and has important effective substances: crocin, picrocrocin and safranal, which gives it the characteristics of color, taste and smell. The search for new sources producing the aforementioned apocarotenoids makes the importance of research on it more obvious day by day. Since the country of Iran has diploid wild species with characteristics close to the sterile triploid cultivated species, in the present research, two species of Caspian saffron C. caspius and Zeiba C. Speciosus, along with the cultivated species, were investigated and 6 genes active in the production of the three mentioned effective substances , CCD2, ALDH, PSY, LCY, BCH, UGT74 (and a housekeeping gene TUB as an internal control gene with constant expression in all tissues) in two flower tissues, stigma and perianth (tepal) and in five stages (time) of flowering including: The stages of bud formation (immature bud), bud ready to bloom, newly opened flower, mature flower and old flower were investigated. Using of Real Time PCR, the expression ratio (fold change) to the internal control gene (with logarithm based on 2) was investigated in different genes and different and sometimes similar expression patterns were observed with the gene expression in the cultivated species in both the stigma and stigma tissues. Based on the results obtained in this study and the increase or decrease in the expression of some genes involved in the pathways of apocarotenoids production, at the same time as the growth of the stages from the bud to the senescence stage of the flower, it is expected from the three aforementioned substances or from other apocarotenoids in the metabolom of flowers, cases have been found in the non-triploid species and create approaches for the commercial use of Iranian wild saffron species and pave the way for its commercialization.
Agriculture
Zohreh Natavan; Rooholla Moradi; Mahdi Naghizadeh; Nasibeh Pourghasemian
Abstract
In order to study the effect of different chemical and organic mulch types on various soil characteristics and qualitative and quantitative yield of saffron (Crocus sativus L.), an experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with three replications at Qaen region in during 2018-2019. ...
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In order to study the effect of different chemical and organic mulch types on various soil characteristics and qualitative and quantitative yield of saffron (Crocus sativus L.), an experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with three replications at Qaen region in during 2018-2019. The experimental treatments were application of various mulch types for weed control (no weed control, hand weeding, transparent polyethylene, black polyethylene, beeswax waste, residues of grape leaf, wheat straw, pomegranate leaf, pistachio leaf, barley straw and saffron corm dunnage). The results showed that all the treatments except black and transparent polyethylene significantly improved the potassium contents of soil compared to hand weeding treatment. Treatments of beeswax waste (0.083%), pistachio leaf (0.081%) and transparent polyethylene (0.080%) included the highest amount of soil nitrogen. The highest amount of carbon (0.838%) and soil organic matter (1.17%) was also observed in beeswax waste mulch treatment. This treatment also led to soil acidification compared to other treatments. Application of all the mulches except transparent polyethylene caused a significant increase in stigmas yield of saffron compared to non-weeding conditions. Beeswax waste and wheat straw had the highest stigma yield (4.89 and 4.32 kg ha-1), respectively; which these increased the stigma yield by 213% and 177% compared to the no weeding treatment. Black polyethylene, pomegranate leaf and grape leaf did not show a significant difference with hand weeding in terms of stigma yield of saffron. The highest amount of safranal, crocin and picrocrocin in saffron was obtained to the black polyethylene mulch treatment. In general, the results confirmed that the application of all the studied mulches with the exception of transparent polyethylene led to improving soil characteristics and saffron yield compared to no weed control treatment and are recommended to farmers.
Agriculture
Alijan Salariyan; Sohrab Mahmoodi; Mohammad. Ali Behdani; hamed kaveh
Abstract
In order to investigate the effect of salinity levels, bio fertilizer and nano fertilizer of Fe on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of saffron, a factorial experiment was conducted as a combined analysis in location by a randomized complete block design with three replications. Bio fertilizer ...
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In order to investigate the effect of salinity levels, bio fertilizer and nano fertilizer of Fe on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of saffron, a factorial experiment was conducted as a combined analysis in location by a randomized complete block design with three replications. Bio fertilizer was applied at four levels of zero, 500, 1000 and 1500 kg ha-1 and nanoparticles of Fe was applied at two levels of non-consumption and application of four liters per hectare. These factors were investigated in two locations with different irrigation salinity (2.29 and 4.49 dS m-1). The results showed that there were the highest values for traits of weight of flower, number of flowers, dry weight of stigma and weight of stigma + style in irrigation conditions with a salinity of 2.29 dS m-1. In the mentioned traits, under the conditions of irrigation with salinity of 2.29 dS m-1, there was no significant difference between the application and non-application levels of nano fertilizer of Fe; However, in the conditions of irrigation with salinity of 4.49 dS m-1, the application of nano fertilizer of Fe compared to non-application, caused a significant increase of 35.5, 33, 32.8 and 34.1% of these traits, respectively. Comparison of mean for triple interaction showed that at both salinity levels of 2.29 and 4.49 dS m-1, in the absence of bio fertilizer, the application of nano fertilizer of Fe could significantly increase the amount of crocin. However, in the application of different levels of bio fertilizer, the application of nano fertilizer of Fe reduced significantly the amount of crocin. The highest amount of safranal was observed in salinity of 4.49 dS m-1 and in the treatments of application of 500 and 1500 kg per hectare of bio fertilizer and application of nano fertilizer of Fe as well as non-application of bio fertilizers and nanoparticles of Fe. Irrigation with salinity of 4.49 dS m-1 in bio fertilizer levels (except for 500 kg ha-1) caused a significant increase in picrocrocin. In generally, it seems that for achieving higher yields, irrigation with less saline water and in case of irrigation with water by more than salinity of 4.2 dS m-1, the use of nano fertilizer of Fe to moderate the effects of salinity is recommended.
Agriculture
Mansoore Kermani; Shahram Amirmoradi
Abstract
This research was carried out as factorial experiment basis on randomized block design with four replications on a three-year saffron farm in Mashhad at 2017/2018 crop year. The experimental factors were different concentrations of silica (0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.2 and 1.5 lit/ha) and the number of spraying ...
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This research was carried out as factorial experiment basis on randomized block design with four replications on a three-year saffron farm in Mashhad at 2017/2018 crop year. The experimental factors were different concentrations of silica (0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.2 and 1.5 lit/ha) and the number of spraying times (Once, twice and three times). Silica spraying (with Crapsil brand) was performed on February 6, March 1 and March 6, 2017.The results showed that the main effect of silica, the number of sprays and their interaction on all studied traits were significant. Mean comparisons of the experimental factors revealed that at the concentration of 1.2 lit/ha silica and two times of spraying, the highest number of flowers per plant(693 flowers), leaf dry weight(3.56 gr/plant), fresh weight of corm(67.25 gr/plant), stigma length(3.8 cm), fresh and dry weight of stigma(1656.5 and 14.39 kg/ha respectively),Safranal (33%) and crocin (192.75%) obtained. The highest amount of picrocrocin (66.35%) was obtained at the concentration of 1.5 lit/ha and two times of spraying. Therefore, the application of silica with the concentration of 1.2 lit/ha in the two stages of spraying was the best treatment and was able to increase the number of flowers per plant, fresh weight of corms and dry weight of stigma 26.5, 106 and 21.2 percent, respectively compared with the control treatment.
Processing, food industry and biochemistry
Jalal Ghanbari; Gholamreza Khajoei-Nejad
Abstract
Modifications in saffron quality characteristics due to storage time between samples harvested from two consecutive years have not been studied well. For this purpose, saffron samples harvested from 2016 and 2017 were analyzed using proton transfer reaction-time of flight-mass spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS) ...
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Modifications in saffron quality characteristics due to storage time between samples harvested from two consecutive years have not been studied well. For this purpose, saffron samples harvested from 2016 and 2017 were analyzed using proton transfer reaction-time of flight-mass spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS) and ISO 3632 trade standard procedures to determine volatile compounds as well as crocin and picrocrocin contents, respectively. The results of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) analysis revealed that 11 main compounds including safranal, acetic acid, 2(5H)-furanone, isobutanal, biogenic aldehyde fragment, 4-ketoisophorone, acetaldehyde, butyrolactone, acetone/propanal, methanol, and isophorone were responsible for the overall VOCs profile of saffron, as accounted for more than 80% of the identified VOCs. Comparisons between samples stored from two years showed that safranal, acetic acid, 2(5H)-furanone, biogenic aldehyde fragment, and butyrolactone compounds were significantly increased for samples stored from 2016 (between 56-82 percent) compared with the samples obtained from 2017. On the contrary, isophorone isomers contents as safranal precursors, decreased their contents relatively. Similarly, crocin and picrocrocin contents measured by ISO method differed significantly between samples of two studied years. For all the studied samples, color and flavor factors of saffron reduced by 20 and 14% on the average for samples stored from 2016 in comparison with amples obtained from 2017, respectively. According to results of principal component analysis, change in crocin, picrocrocin, and main volatile compounds of saffron including safranal, acetic acid, 2(5H)-furanone, isobutanal, and isophorone could be considered as an indicator for distinguishing the current year’s harvested samples from the samples stored since previous years.
Agriculture
Amin Ramezani; Hossein Aroiee; Majid Azizi; Ahmad Ahmadian
Abstract
In order to find and recommend a method for improving vegetative and reproductive traits and economic yield of saffron using organic compounds of soil amendment, a split plot experiment including three irrigation intervals of 30, 50 and 70 days as main plots and three factors of vermicompost, Terracottem ...
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In order to find and recommend a method for improving vegetative and reproductive traits and economic yield of saffron using organic compounds of soil amendment, a split plot experiment including three irrigation intervals of 30, 50 and 70 days as main plots and three factors of vermicompost, Terracottem and Bolourab A, as well as control, as sub plots was carried out for three years (2014-2017) at Saffron Research Institute, Torbat-e-Heydarieh University. The results showed that the effects of treatments on all quantitative and qualitative traits, were significant (p
Agriculture
Ehsan Ollah Jalili; Farnaz Ganjabadi; davod habibi; alireza eivazi
Abstract
In order to increase the quality and yield of saffron, an experiment was conducted in the Alborz province, (Eshtehard), in the year 2016-2017 through the interaction of nitroxin biological fertilizer and irrigation management. The experiment was conducted as split plot in randomized complete block design ...
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In order to increase the quality and yield of saffron, an experiment was conducted in the Alborz province, (Eshtehard), in the year 2016-2017 through the interaction of nitroxin biological fertilizer and irrigation management. The experiment was conducted as split plot in randomized complete block design with 3 replications. The experimental factors included irrigation method (Surface drip Irrigation, Subsurface drip Irrigation (15 cm depth) and Irrigation is Common (conventional area) in the main plot) and biological fertilizer of nitroxin (no fertilizer (control), 2, 4 and 6 lit.ha-1 in the Subplot). The results of this study showed that simple and interaction effects of biological fertilizer application of nitroxin and irrigation management were significant in all measured traits. In order to use optimal water resources, diamond irrigation method (Subsurface drip Irrigation) can be used to reduce irrigation losses and achieve high yield in saffron production. The effects of irrigation management of Subsurface drip Irrigation diameters with biological fertilizer of nitroxin 4 lit.ha-1 were superior to other treatments, so that the highest yield of saffron stigma was observed in this treatment with 5.8 kg.ha-1.
Agriculture
Anis Rezaei; Hassan Feizi; Rohollah Moradi
Abstract
In order to evaluate the effect of last irrigation cut-off time and various fertilizer resources on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) flower, an experiment was conducted in a split-plot arranged as a randomized complete block design with three replications and ...
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In order to evaluate the effect of last irrigation cut-off time and various fertilizer resources on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) flower, an experiment was conducted in a split-plot arranged as a randomized complete block design with three replications and 18 treatments in a four year research farm of Jihad ministry located in Lalezar village, Bardsir region, Kerman province, in 2015-2016. The experimental treatments were irrigation cut-off time (conventional time (5 May), 15 days before the conventional time (20 April) and 15 days after conventional time (20 May)) assigned to the main plot, and nutritional resources (cow manure 40 t ha-1, hen manure15 t.ha-1, vermicompost 10 t ha-1, humic acid 2 kg ha-1, and chemical fertilizer containing 200 kg ha-1 urea and 140 kg.ha-1 P and K) as subplot. The analysis of variance results showed that the effect of irrigation cut-off treatment was significant on all the quantitative traits, but the treatment had no significant effect on qualitative traits of flower. The results showed that the delay in irrigation cut-off led to a significant decrease in other traits. As, the highest number of flowers (41.10 in m-2), fresh (145.16 kg.ha-1) and dry (19.41 kg.ha-1) weight of flower, fresh (11.12 kg.ha-1) and dry (2.02 kg.ha-1) weight of stigma were found in the earlier irrigation cut-off treatment (before the conventional time). The effect of fertilizer resources on all the studied traits was significant except for the values of picrocrocin and safranal. In all the irrigation treatments, vermicompost and cow manure significantly produced higher flower number and stigma yield than other fertilizer treatments. Dry stigma yield in chemical fertilizer (1.91 kg.ha-1), hen manure (1. 57 kg.ha-1) and humic acid (1.42 kg.ha-1) was significantly higher than control (1.26 kg.ha-1). The highest (169.7 nm) and lowest (163.1 nm) amount of crocin were obtained in control and vermicompost treatments, respectively. In general, the results showed that irrigation cut-off in April with using vermicompost fertilizer had the best conditions for saffron cultivation in the Bardsir region of Kerman.
Agriculture
Shirin Ansaryan Mahabadi; Iraj Allah dadi; Majid Ghorbani Javid; Elias Soltani
Abstract
Salicylic acid as a plant hormone plays an important role in regulating growth and physiological processes in plant. In order to study the effects of salicylic acid hormone and mother corm weight on saffron flowering properties, an experiment was conducted as factorial based on a randomized complete ...
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Salicylic acid as a plant hormone plays an important role in regulating growth and physiological processes in plant. In order to study the effects of salicylic acid hormone and mother corm weight on saffron flowering properties, an experiment was conducted as factorial based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at the saffron research field of College of Aburaihan, University of Tehran during 2016-2017. The first factor consist of salicylic acid in three levels (Normal, priming with 1 and 2 mM concentrations (and second factor was weight of corm in two level that consist of small corm (3-5 gr) and large corm (8-10 gr). The results showed that the effect of corm weight on fresh weight of flower, Length of flower, fresh weight of stigma, length of stigma, fresh weight of pistil, length of pistil and qualitative characteristics of stigma were significant. The amount of these traits was higher in terms of the use of large mother’s corms. The effect of corm weight on dry weight of stigma was not significant. Interaction between salicylic acid and corm weight on all traits was not significant but the results of mean comparisons showed that the highest amount of fresh weight of flower (99.5 kg/ha), dry weight of stigma (1.45 kg/ha) and lowest days to emergence was 47 days after planting that related to salicylic acid in 2 mM. More amount of picrocrocin as a saffron flavor was related to salicylic acid in 1 mM. Crocin percentage in the priming treatment with 2 mM salicylic acid was higher than the other two levels; amount of safranal was high at 1mM. Totally, results of this experiment indicated that planting large mother’s corms with salicylic acid led to improvement of some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of saffron stigma.
Agriculture
hossein sahabi; Mohsen jahan; alireza kochaki; Mehdi Nassiri Mahallati
Abstract
In general, corm weight and nutrient management are considered as the most important factors in relation to quantitative and qualitative traits of saffron. In order to investigate the effects of mother corm origin, mother corm weight and nutrient foliar application on yield and qualitative traits of ...
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In general, corm weight and nutrient management are considered as the most important factors in relation to quantitative and qualitative traits of saffron. In order to investigate the effects of mother corm origin, mother corm weight and nutrient foliar application on yield and qualitative traits of saffron, a field experiment was conducted as factorial layout based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at the Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, during the years from 2012 to 2015. The mother corm origin (Iranian and Spanish corms), mother corm weight 8 g and lower (small), 8.1–15 g (medium) and 15.1-23 g (large) and nutrient foliar application (application and control) were considered as the first, second and third experimental factors, respectively. According to the results, the larger mother corms significantly resulted in a greater number of flowers per m2, increased fresh flower and dry stigma + style yields. However, the effect of nutrient foliar application was observed to be not significant on these traits. When Iranian mother corms were planted, the number of flowers per m2, fresh flower and dry stigma + style yields were higher, compared with Spanish mother corms. For instance, flower number, fresh flower and dry stigma + style yields increased by 17, 13 and 14%, respectively, when planting Iranian mother corms. Nonetheless, picrocrocin concentration was higher (up to 3.8%) in the Spanish planted corm treatment. Based on the results, beside the optimal nutrient foliar application, the importance of adapting the corms origin with environmental conditions of the site designated for planting is emphasized.
Other subject about saffron
hamed kaveh; amir salari
Abstract
In recent decades, the concept of quality of agricultural products has changed drastically and the quality of raw material is considered as a necessary prerequisite for the quality of the final processed product. With an aim of quality classification of saffron production centers in the provinces of ...
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In recent decades, the concept of quality of agricultural products has changed drastically and the quality of raw material is considered as a necessary prerequisite for the quality of the final processed product. With an aim of quality classification of saffron production centers in the provinces of Khorasan, the main components of marketability and quality of saffron (Crocin, Picrocrocin and Safranal) are determined using ultraviolet-visible light spectrum analysis and the ISO / TS 36322 standard. Product sampling was done from 14 centers of saffron production in Khorasan provinces including Safiabad, Qaen, Kashmar, Torbat Heydarieh, Khalil Abad, Bardaskan, Shahn Abad, Chakhmaq, Torbat-Jam, Faizabad, Sabzevar, Sarayan, Eshq Abad and Birjand. Harvest, stigma separation and drying was performed equally in all samples. Comparison of results to national and ISO standard showed that the Safranal content in all of the studied areas were lower than both Iran’s national standard and ISO standards. For Picrocrocin, the results for most of the studied centers were better than ISO standard. However, the results obtained from region numbers 2, 10, 11 and 12 did not reach the national standard of Iran and the products of region numbers 5, 8 and 9 were close to the lowest value in the standard. Region 12 had the lowest Crocin content which was lower than both ISO and national standards. All of the regions 2,5,10 and 14 had low Crocin content and did not reach the minimum quality of Iran’s national standard for Crocin content.
Processing, food industry and biochemistry
Elham Azarpazhooh; Ahmad Ehtiati; Parvin Sharayei
Abstract
Saffron, as the most expensive agricultural and pharmaceutical product of the world, has a special value among plants. Since the Saffron harvesting period is short, its storage for later processing requires understanding the most effective factors affecting the quality of saffron and its deterioration. ...
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Saffron, as the most expensive agricultural and pharmaceutical product of the world, has a special value among plants. Since the Saffron harvesting period is short, its storage for later processing requires understanding the most effective factors affecting the quality of saffron and its deterioration. Therefore the effects of reposition thickness, storage temperature and storage time of saffron flowers on its chemical parameters including crocin, safranal and picrocrocin values of saffron stigma and its microbial quality indicators including total count, coliform and mold contamination were modelled. This was done using multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network (ANN) and its structure and the learning parameters were optimized using genetic algorithm technique. The optimized MLP neural networkwas capable to predict the saffron quality characteristics during storage with coefficient of determinations higher than %94 and low error values (RMSE lower than 3.5 for all responses). The ANN model showed that reposition thickness has the lowest impact on chemical and microbial parameters deterioration while increasing storage temperature and time drastically increased loss of quality although the effect of storage time is lower than that of storage temperature. Overall, keeping fresh saffron flowers at a low temperature near zero degrees centigrade is necessary for maximum retention of valuable chemical compounds and minimum microbial contamination development during saffron flower storage for further processing.
Agriculture
Masoumeh Vakili-ghartavol; Saeedeh Alizadeh Salteh
Abstract
Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a valuable product that is moderately resistant to drought and is cultivated in environments with very different climatic conditions. The most important chemical compositions of saffron include crocin and crocetin derivatives. Saffron is used as a food colouring and flavouring ...
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Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a valuable product that is moderately resistant to drought and is cultivated in environments with very different climatic conditions. The most important chemical compositions of saffron include crocin and crocetin derivatives. Saffron is used as a food colouring and flavouring agent in the food industry. Moreover, it is utilized in folk medicine as antispasmodic, carminative, sedative, anti-depression and for heart disease. In this study, saffron samples from different altitudes, i.e. Marand with altitude of 1360m and Kashmar with altitude of 1000m above sea level were collected and dried in the same conditions and compared with commercial samples. Three major metabolites (crocin, picrocrocin and safranal) were quantified in both altitudes by Spectrophotometry. The results obtained showed that saffron samples from Marand had the most amounts of crocin and picrocrocin (absorbance: 306 and 118). Also, after extraction, antioxidant activity was quantified by the DPPH free radical scavenging method. The results indicated that saffron samples from Marand had higher concentration of these constituents and antioxidant activity in comparison to that of samples from Kashmar. However, due to reduction of rain and increasing drought in the Azerbaijan region, cultivation of saffron in Marand is recommended on the basis of the results of this research and high yield and quality of saffron.
Agriculture
Hassan Feizi; Abdollah Mollafilabi; Hossein Sahabi; Ahmad Ahmadian
Abstract
In order to investigate the effects of summer irrigation and conservation tillage on flower characteristics and corms behavior of Saffron (Crocus sativus L.), a field experiment was conducted during 2009- 2010, at Faculty of Agriculture, University of Torbat-e-Heydarieh, Iran. A factorial trial based ...
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In order to investigate the effects of summer irrigation and conservation tillage on flower characteristics and corms behavior of Saffron (Crocus sativus L.), a field experiment was conducted during 2009- 2010, at Faculty of Agriculture, University of Torbat-e-Heydarieh, Iran. A factorial trial based on complete randomized block design with four replications was used. The experimental treatments were all combination of summer irrigations (July, August, July + August and no irrigation) and conservation tillage (application and non- application). Based on analysis of variance, in the first and second years, summer irrigation had significant effects on number and flower yield of saffron. In the first year, the highest number of flower, flower and stigma yield of saffron significantly observed by irrigation on July + August (25 flowers per m2, 12.1 and 0.16 g.m-2, respectively,). In the second year, irrigation in August had highest significant effects on mentioned characteristics of saffron (127.4 flowers per m2, 61.4 and 0.87 g.m-2, respectively). In the first year, flower and stigma yields of saffron significantly increased by conservation tillage (by 11.3 and 11.7%), as compared to control (no conservation tillage). In addition, summer irrigation and conservation tillage significantly increased picrocrocin content.