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Hydroponic Saffron Cultivation · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today we're talking about saffron
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  cultivation in hydroponics.
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  There's a lot of interest in this subject at the moment, so I thought I'd talk
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  about it and give my two pennies worth. I'm not an expert when it comes to saffron cultivation.
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  I've never done it, but I'll talk about some of the science behind it.
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  So saffron, as you will know, is a herb or a spice,
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  and it's harvested from the crocus, and
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  the true crocus sativum I
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  think is the name and it is the the
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  red stigmas and styles of the
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  flower so that's the only thing you harvest you get
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  them female parts of the flower except for the ovary and you
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  pull it out you dry it and that is the spice and
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  so in hydroponics there's a lot of interest in it
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  because it's very very high value crazy figures on how
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  valuable it is per per kilo and
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  there are a couple of reasons why it's so valuable it's a
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  it grows the plant grows from a
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  corm which is like a cross between a bulb and
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  a potato or tuber so a corm the
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  corms are lifted from the soil they are
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  they're cleaned up so all the the dead leaf
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  material on the outside is removed they're dipped in a
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  fungicide and so because
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  all the soil-based fungi are on there and then
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  they're put into racks when they're grown hydroponically and you
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  can get lots of these corms in a rack and
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  you can obviously stack these racks in vertical farms
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  you get a lot more bull corms per
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  square meter than you would in the field now saffron's
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  normally grown in a ram in very nutrient poor soil
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  and so you don't get very many corms per
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  square meter even when you cultivate it and.
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  Mainly the cost comes from the labor costs of
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  picking the saffron threads they're
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  called the styles and the stigmas and so if you can get them in vertical farming.
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  You can harvest them a lot easier your workforce can do a lot per square meter
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  however how do you actually grow these plants there's not many corn based plants
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  or even bulb type plants you can grow hydroponically so what they tend to do
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  is they get lots of the corms in pack them in and then,
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  They soak them in the fungicide and a bit of nutrient solution.
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  And then over the summer, they're going to lie dormant. So if you think about
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  crocus in your garden, you don't see them during the summer.
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  And then during the autumn, they are given a cool treatment.
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  And then when they start to sprout, they're given an even colder treatment for
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  about a week. And so when they get to about 10 centimeters.
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  And then you'll get flowers in about two weeks after that.
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  Up to the bulb all the energy for the styles and
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  stigmas is already in that bulb that you've you've bought
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  and paid for and put into your rack so you've
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  already put the upfront costs in there it's already got the energy to
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  produce the crop in there so that there's no real
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  lighting or energy cost in there to begin with
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  so you're talking only a few grams from
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  a tray of of bulbs and then even then
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  they're dried down over a two-week period once they're
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  harvested and so they lose most of their their weight
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  even then so that's where another reason why it gets very
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  expensive so you've had your bulbs and
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  you get it's an unusual hydroponic crop because you get your crop first
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  and then you have to think about photosynthesis
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  afterwards so you then have to
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  grow the plant for a few more months
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  at least to build the energy reserves back up so that
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  you can get a second crop out of these bulbs that you bought if you just harvest
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  them you could potentially harvest them and and like you would say a forced
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  vegetable like the rhubarb when they put them in the in the or asparagus but
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  really you want to be getting a second and a third and a fourth crop out of
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  that for your return on investment so you then start to think about photosynthesis
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  and growing the crop and getting the energy back into the corn for the next.
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  Time you want to stimulate it into flowering so you've
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  got to think about how you're going to do that and you
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  might use DWC that's one option that's been looked
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  at aeroponics has been looked at and you've
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  got to look at pests and disease as well so mites and bullbrot
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  are your two biggest pests and that's where they
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  do this so they do actually do hydroponic saffron in
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  Iran and America so Iran where most
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  of the saffron comes from anyway they also use seaweed extract
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  for biostimulation getting the roots growing and they
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  use standard hydroponic fertilizers so they
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  do that now the question is how many crops
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  can you get per year now normally in saffron you
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  only get one crop per year but if you supercharge for
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  photosynthesis and you can trick the plant into thinking it's summer
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  and to go dormant and then you can trick it into thinking
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  it's spring again maybe once twice a
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  year or three times a year even four times a year then you
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  could potentially quadruple your crop i'm not sure if
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  that's done there's not much information the the videos
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  and the information that's out there has been duplicated so
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  there's like one youtube video and then the information from
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  that has been put into a blog and then the information from that blog has been
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  put to a youtube video so a lot of the information is
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  a bit sketchy out there what what's happening with saffron in.
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  Iran it'd be good to go out there and see probably not
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  the best idea at the moment lots and people i
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  know have been out to iran got kidnapped recently so not the best idea but we
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  do have some listeners in iran i know that so if you are a listener in iran
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  in the horticulture sector and you know how many crops of saffron are you can
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  achieve per year then let me know and if you think it's safe to travel to iran
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  invite me over and i'm happy to come over.
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  Be interesting to know that because if you look on youtube there's not much information
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  but there is a lot of interest worldwide in growing saffron what's we
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  say about saffron don't confuse it with the autumn crocus that
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  is a poisonous plant we've talked about before is used for polyploidy and
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  mutating plants definitely don't use that one only use the
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  that if you've ever grown saffron hydroponically let
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  me know i guess one of the things to consider is the weight because of
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  all those corms on the on the shelves it'd get pretty heavy
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  compared to a normal crop okay so that's
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  been hydroponics daily for today saffron make sure
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  you control the mites the fungi it's a bulb type
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  product led lights are used but also normal sunlight
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  is used in hydroponics in the vertical farms because it's just that sunny
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  in iran compared to other places around the world they can just use all
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  natural light and yeah it
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  seems like an interesting one a lot of interest in it because of its value but also
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  because it's a it's a hydroponic crop that doesn't grow like any other type
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  of hydroponic crop so that's been hydroponics daily for today thanks very much
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  for listening and if you know someone who grows saffron perhaps send them this
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  episode so they can have a listen as well and they're happy to do a follow-up
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  if i've got this all wrong and there's more information out there okay thank you very much goodbye.