نشریه زراعت و فناوری زعفران
سال دهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 37، پاییز 1401)

Saffron can be cultivated in many regions of the world with different climates. But the best climate for growing saffron is the Mediterranean climate with its warm and dry summers. The present study was conducted to evaluate some indicators of saffron growth in 2019-2020 in four region with different altitudes above sea level in Sari, Iran. These regions include Sari plain (level with sea level), Sarkat (350 meters above sea level), Reskat (900 meters above sea level) and Margav (1350 meters above sea level). These experiments were performed in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatment was includes corm size in three weight groups: small (4±2 g), medium (10±2 g) and large (15±2 g) and Measured traits include leaf area index, cumulative dry matter, growth rate, relative growth rate and saffron yield. The results showed that the trend of saffron leaf area development in all studied regions has a non-linear trend and follows a logistic-peak function. Based on the results, a significant difference was observed between the leaf area development trend among different sizes of mother corm in all regions and the trend of leaf area index changes during the growing season was higher for larger corms than for smaller corms. The trend of changes in dry matter accumulation also had a sigmoidal trend in all experiment region. Total dry matter changes were higher for larger corms. Although the trend of changes in crop growth rate in higher altitude region was lower; But the rate of growth rate fluctuation or in other words the difference between the minimum and maximum growth rate during the season in the two higher regions was less than the lower regions. The growth trend of saffron in four regions showed that it grows during the season in region with higher altitudes above sea level and following more vegetative growth and more dry matter allocation to the storage organ, larger corm is produced and the potential to increase the yield of dried saffron flowers and stigmas will increase next year.

One of the new management methods to reduce costs and also environmental pollution is the use of agricultural waste. Considering the importance of metal compounds in the consumer’s health and their decisive role in proposing suitable cultivation areas and developing food applications of saffron by-products in Iran, it is necessary to measure micronutrients and useful nutritional metal elements and heavy metal residues. Iran is the largest producer and exporter of saffron in the world with an annual production of 330 tons and an export of 280 tons. In this study, minerals of different components of saffron flowers (petals, stamens and styles) collected from eleven farms (in Khorasan Razavi and Qazvin provinces) were measured using an atomic absorption spectrometer. The results showed that in the stamen, the highest amount of micronutrients was related to magnesium (3031.9031), sodium (366.29), iron (236.57), copper (122.01), manganese (109.04) and zinc (91.17) mg/kg, respectively. Also, calcium and potassium quantities were 2.30 and 3.51 g/100g, respectively. In the style samples, the highest amount of micronutrients was related to magnesium (2365.78), sodium (394.53), iron (238.11), manganese (113.13), zinc (66.83) and copper 49.39 mg/kg, respectively. In the style samples, calcium (4.30) and potassium (2.15) were 4.30 and 2.15 g/100g, respectively. In the case of petals, like style, the highest levels of micronutrients were related to magnesium (1805/80), sodium (539.25), iron (292.63), manganese (81.98), zinc (56.76) and copper 16.17) mg/kg, respectively. Also, the amount of calcium and potassium were 3.45 and 1.59 g/100g, respectively. Due to the results and richness of these by-products of micronutrients, they can be used in various food industries, including enrichment and compensation of mineral deficiency of various processed and canned foods.

Saffron is one of the most valuable crops on the planet and the most expensive agricultural and medicinal product globally; this plant has a special place among the industrial and export products of Iran. One of the challenges in the production of this plant is timely harvest from the ground as well as red stigmas (branches) separating from other parts of saffron because the flowers are harvested in a brief period. Further, harvesting and separating at a limited time is a critical point. This research has been tried with the help of image processing techniques to discuss and recognize saffron flowers and how to identify them on the ground. In the first step, saffron flowers are recognized by transforming colored spaces. Then, the histogram and the minimum threshold are used to segment and remove extra pixels. For this purpose, to identify flowers, RGB space is converted to YCbCr space, and the combination of HSI and YCbCr color space is used to distinguish other objects in the image; also, a histogram of Cb component for early identification of saffron flowers are used. Then, those pixels which are misidentified are removed by the threshold value. Next step, the saffron flower needle-shaped leaves that are placed on the flowers are restored by morphological operation of the proposed method, and the flowers that overlap are removed. Then, the type of saffron flower (bud, broken, open flower) is determined, and the ability of harvest or suitability of saffron flowers for harvesting has been determined. Finally, the flower center that can be harvested is recognized and used by the saffron harvesting robot. Average results with respect to the accuracy, recall, F-measure, correctness, and correlation coefficient were 99.79, 99.42, 99.60, 99.91, and 99.50 achieved by the proposed method, respectively.

Burkholderia gladioli pv. gladioli (Bgg) is the causative agent of saffron bacterial rot. Accurate identification methods will play an important role in disease control management. Flagellum is the main commodity of the bacteria that facilitates its movement. Furthermore, it is of particular importance in colonization and pathogenicity. The fliC gene is one among five other genes encoding flagellin, the protein that makes the flagella in bacteria. In this study, the flagellin genes of 11 bacterial species were selected and the phylogenetic tree analysis divided them into plant and animal bacteria groups. Electron microscope images were taken from the bacterial flagella and its length was up to nine microns with 400-600 nm in diameter; as observed in both Lophotrichous and Monotrichous forms. fliC was amplified and analyzed for the first time by polymerase chain reaction for the two isolates of bacterial pathogen of saffron. Specific primers were designed and used that managed to separate Bgg from other bacteria, and helped in distinguishing the infected saffron corms from the healthy. Electron microscopy of the flagellum was illustrative of different types of Bgg. Investigating and studying the fliC gene can be useful in diagnosis of the causative agent of saffron corm rot disease.

In recent years, the use of saffron spice is increasing due to its medicinal properties and effective components. In addition to increasing crop production, increasing the quantity and quality of secondary metabolites is considered one of the most important objectives of plant breeding programs. On the other hand, the saffron plant has low genetic diversity due to the nature of vegetative propagation and induction of variation through mutagenesis is a suitable tool to achieve the desired diversity. Gamma radiation is one of the most widely used physical mutagens in plant breeding programs. In order to investigate the effect of gamma-ray on some growth and phytochemical indices of saffron plants, an experiment was conducted in an unbalanced complete randomized design with three treatments (Control, 15 and 18 Gy) at Yazd University. In this experiment, 15 and 18 Gy doses of gamma irradiation (Co60) were applied at Karaj Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute to induce mutations on collected saffron corms from Qaen, South Khorasan in August 2017. In this study, picrocrocin, safranal and crocin were measured in a 1% aqueous solution at 254, 330 and 440 nm wavelengths, respectively. Based on the results of this experiment, the effect of irradiation on picrocrocin and crocin was significant (P <0.001) and the observed amounts of these compounds (93.77 and 263.02) at the dose of 15 Gy were significantly higher than 18 Gy (92.34 and 262.73), while in terms of safranal content, the difference between radiation levels was not significant. Leaf area index and harvest index were also significant and showed the highest amount of these two indices at 15 Gy dose (3.06 and 0.14). In this study, although gamma radiation treatment could not significantly change the number of daughter corms between different levels of radiation and control, a significant reduction in relative chlorophyll content and an average weight of corms were observed compared to the control (without radiation). In general, the results of this study showed that in phytochemical traits as well as harvest index and leaf area, 15 Gy had a significant advantage over plants without radiation, but at higher levels of gamma radiation, probably due to degradation of genetic content and its effect on some biochemical parameters, 18 Gy plants failed to show acceptable results.

Saffron is one of the non -export products that belong to Iran more than half of it global market. In the last two decades, the export price of saffron has been declining. Continuing this process by reducing exports can have important welfare consequences for producers, exporters and consumers. In this regard, the present study aimed to evaluate the welfare effects of saffron export prices in the world market on the aforementioned groups. The analytical tools used include domestic supply and demand functions and export supply, which was estimated by the series data during the period of 1980-2020. The findings of the study indicate a significant effect of reducing export prices on saffron exports. It has been found that the price of exporting producers and exporters is suffering from welfare, but the welfare of domestic consumer's increases, which is far less than the welfare of the two groups. Welfare analysis showed that in the saffron market if the monopoly in the market of these products completely disappeared, the total welfare of the said groups would be reduced by about 53 percent. It is suggested that before the producers are harmed, support programs should be prepared for this group specifically so that in case of changes in the world market, with the support of the product, it will be possible to continue production. Until now, the export price has always been much higher than the domestic price and exporters have been able to make a profit, so to support producers, transferring income from exporters in the form of a production protection fund can be a political solution. This fund can also be used as a tool to reduce the volatility of exporters' income.