Effects of Biofertilizers and Corm Direction in Soil on some Agronomic Traits of Saffron

Tabrizi, Leila; Azizi, Elham

doi:10.22077/jsr.2019.1808.1069

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Leila Tabrizi ¹
Elham Azizi ²

¹ of Horticultural Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural Science and Engineering, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, P.O. Box: 31587-411, Karaj, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of Agriculture, Payame Noor University, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22077/jsr.2019.1808.1069

Abstract

Saffron is a valuable spice plant applied in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Despite low expectations for plant nutrients, food supply in plants’ Rhizosphere can be effective in the production of flowers and corms of saffron. This experiment was conducted in order to investigate the effects of biofertilizers inoculation and mother corm direction in soil on some corm, flower and stigma traits of saffron. An experiment was conducted as factorial layout based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at research farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Tehran University during 2010 to 2013. Treatments included mother corm direction in two levels (horizontal and vertical) and biofertilizers (with mycorrhiza and biophosphorous inoculation, and control). In this experiment, traits such as flower number, fresh and dry weight of flower, stigma, petal and corms and corm diameter was measured. The results indicated that in both years of corm study, horizontal direction of saffron corm in soil was superior to vertical direction for corm diameter and number per square meter. Also, in first year, fresh weight of corms in horizontal direction of corms was 23.6% higher than vertical direction, but in second year, vertical direction caused more fresh weight of corm (6.3%) than the horizontal direction. In the first year, the most fresh and dry weight of corms was obtained in integrated treatment of mycorrhiza and horizontal direction of corms in soil. In second year, the most of these traits was observed in integrated treatment of biophosphorous and horizontal direction of corms in soil. Fresh and dry weight of flower and stigma increased in horizontal direction treatment compared to vertical direction of corms. Investigation of biofertilizer effect on fresh and dry weight of flower, petal and stigma showed that the highest and the lowest of these traits were in biophosphorous and mycorrhiza fertilizers, respectively. According to results, in both years of study of flower traits, the best treatment for dry weight of flower and petal and fresh weight of stigma was integrated treatment horizontal direction of corm under the application of biophosphorous fertilizer.

Keywords

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