Saffron Underground Organs as Affected by Organic, Biological, and Chemical Fertilizers

Saffron is one of the Iranian strategic medicinal crops. It is a sterile plant and its breeding is not yet possible through sexual organs; therefore، planting larger and more productive corms is the only possible option to maintain optimal performance over the years. In this study، the effects of different levels of chemical and non-chemical fertilizers were investigated on the number، size، and yield of different types of saffron corms after two years. A factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design was performed with 12 treatments. The factors included nitrogen fertilizer at three levels (0، 50، and 100 percent of the recommended amount)، and non-chemical fertilizers in four levels (no fertilizer، vermicompost، bio fertilizers containing Pseudomonas and Bacillus، and integrated application of vermicompost and bio fertilizers). Results showed that different levels of fertilizers and interactions between different fertilizers have a significant effect on the measured characteristics. As the integrated treatment of 50% chemical fertilizer، vermicompost، and bacteria produced the highest number and fresh and dry yield of the major and daughter corms with amounts of، respectively، 880 corms. m-2، 41. 43 and 25. 38 mouseover=«function onmouseover() {msoCommentShow (''_anchor_1''،''_com_1'')}» onmouseout=«function onmouseout() {msoCommentHide (''_com_1'')}» href= «#_msocom_1» > [H1] ton. ha-1 Also، it enhanced the total dry corms yield by 9. 29 times more than the control. The next most effective treatment was the integrated treatment of vermicompost with 100% and 50% of the chemical fertilizer. Thus، it can be concluded that application of nonchemical fertilizers along with half dose of chemical fertilizer was the most successful treatment.