Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• zaynolabedin omidmehr ¹
• Mohammad Hossein Saeidirad ²

¹ Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Semnan (Shahrood) Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, AREEO, Shahrood, lran.

² Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Khorasan Razavi Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization (AREEO)

Abstract

Introduction: In arid and semi-arid regions of Iran, water as the most important factor limiting production determines the priority of cultivation. Since the past, Iranian farmers have been familiar with this important principle and have produced products with low water requirements such as saffron. Iran is currently considered the largest producer of Saffron in the world and has the largest area under cultivation of this product. Due to its high economic efficiency and low water requirement outside the summer season, saffron planting has been welcomed by farmers in recent years.
 
Results and Discussion: The results showed that the effect of the forward speed of the planter on the studied properties of saffron was not statistically significant. One of the important advantages of planting machines is that the forward speed of planting machines does not affect their performance. Because the driving force of the saffron spreader is supplied from the wheel of the machine, the speed of the machine is independent of the speed of the tractor and the slippage of its wheels. The amount of corm density on the studied traits of saffron (number of flowers per unit, flower weight and saffron yield (dry stigma)) was statistically significant (P<0.01), so that high density (120 cormsm^-2) increased number and weight of flowers and yield of saffron (dry stigma). The number of flowers per square meter is one of the important components of saffron crop performance. There was a significant difference (at the level of 1%) between the experimental treatments in terms of the number of flowers per square meter. So that the density of 120 corms per square meter with an average of 67.2 flowers per square meter was placed in the best statistical group, and the densities of 100 and 70 corms per square meter were placed in the next statistical group with an average of 57.7 and 53.2 flowers per square meter, respectively. Among different corm densities, the highest flower weight (26.1 gm^-2) was related to the density of 120 corms per square meter. At the densities of 100 and 70 corms per square meter, the weight of the flower produced was 22.4 and 20.6 gm^-2, respectively. The results showed that, effective field capacity, operation time and amount of fuel consumed per hectare were 0.67hahr^-1, 1.5hrha^-1 and 23lha^-1, respectively.
 
Conclusion: The results of this study indicated the significant effect of different amounts of corm on flower yield components. So that the increase in the amount of planted corms up to 120 corms per square meter caused an increase in the fresh and dry flower yield of the stigma and the number of flowers. Although the effect of the speed of the planting machine on the yield of saffron was not effective. But using a fully automatic saffron planter with a planting speed of 5kmhr^-1 increased the effective field capacity of the device. Increasing effective field capacity reduces the time of planting operations (timely planting operations) and reduces labor costs. Therefore, it seems that choosing a density of 120 corms per square meter and using a sowing device as an alternative to traditional planting will increase the yield of saffron flowers and increase the income of the farmers.
 

Keywords

• Effective field capacity of planter
• planting density
• saffron planter
• stigma yield
• Tractor forward speed