Evaluation of antioxidant activity of saffron in Marand region, Iran
Saffron is an important and expensive spice that has broad use in the food industry, medicinal and textile and dyeing.
It is an important product due to low water requirements and high economical yield.
Especially in recent years, it is recommended for cultivation in regions suffering arid and semi-arid climates.
On the other hand, because of it being harmless in damages of synthetic antioxidants, there has been an interest to use natural antioxidants in industries.
This is the first report of antioxidant activity and quality of saffron cultivated in Bonab e Jadid, Marand region from East Azerbaijan province.
To this order, saffron samples were collected from farms in 2014 and 2015 and after air drying, antioxidant activity of different parts of the saffron flower were measured in DPPH model.
Results showed that saffron petals have the highest antioxidant activity.
In addition antioxidant activity of stigma and petal collected in 2014 (30.43 and 88.32%, respectively) was higher than in 2015 (10.17 and 64.01%, respectively), because of weather differences.
As a result, we can recommend saffron cultivation as sustainable substitute crop with high added value in some of Azerbaijan's agricultural areas with low and erratic rainfalls, for their socio-economical development.
Alizadeh-Salteh, S. (2017). Evaluation of antioxidant activity of saffron in Marand region, Iran. Acta Hortic. 1184, 309-312
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1184.44
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1184.44
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1184.44
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1184.44
climate, stigma, saffron petal, Marand, antioxidant activity
English