Assessment of relationships between saffron yield and irrigation management of farmers in rural areas of Torbat Heydarieh and Farooj

In order to investigation of relationships between saffron yield and summer irrigation a survey was conducted in fields of rural areas of Torbat Heydarieh and Farooj, Iran. The survey was done by questionnaires as face to face interview with farmers and expertise of this subject in 2019. Based on this method, 90 saffron fields (area about 0.5- 7 ha) with 1-4 years ages were studied. In addition effect of first irrigation treatments consisted irrigation on august, on mid-September and on early October on saffron yield based on completely randomized design was performed. Results indicated that in 2 years old fields did not significantly affected by first irrigation time, but the time of first irrigation had significant effect on saffron yield especially in 1, 3 and 4 years-old farms. Irrigation on early October in one year-old farms showed the highest stigma yield, but in two years- old farms this condition occurred on mid-September at Torbat Heydarieh and Farooj. In addition there was a negative relationship between fungi contamination with yield (-4.779) in three years- old and regression coefficient was -7.731 in four years-old farms. Furthermore there was about 64 % of changes in corm contamination to fungi related to number of irrigation. Therefore early irrigation of farms in summer such as August especially in three and four years-old because of enhancement of contamination to fungi diseases do not recommend.