THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORM WEIGHT AND TOTAL FLOWER AND LEAF NUMBER IN SAFFRON

Saffron (Crocus sativus) is a highly valuable opportunity crop that belongs to the Iridaceae family. It is a perennial, herbaceous and stemless crop which suffers from a very scarce comprehensive literature on its agronomic aspects. In order to study the effects of corm weight on flower production of saffron, two experiments were conducted during the years 1989 to 1992 and 1990 to 1992. For this purpose, a field was sown on 20 Sept. 1989 and the number of flowers was recorded each day after first flowering day during 4 successive years (EXP1). Another field was sown on 20 Sept. 1990 and the number of flowers was recorded during three successive years (EXP2). To study the effects of corm weight on saffron flower production, a wide range of corm weights was selected and corms were sown in 10 lines in each experiment. In addition to the number of flowers, the number of corm leaves during the first three years was also recorded. Finally, the relationships between corm weight and the number of leaves and flowers were studied. Our results indicated that although the total number of flowers was increased with corm weight increasing in many cases, the relationship between corm weight and the total number of flowers was not considerable (R²EXP1=0.23, R²EXP2=0.2); however, the relationship between corm weight and the total number of leaves was considerable (R2=0.53). Also, our results indicated that middle ranges of corm weights are the most suitable weights for sowing and very small or very big corms are not satisfactory.