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Crocus sativus L. is a male sterile vegetatively propagated plant. Its flower produces stigmas that when dried, constitute the source of a spice commonly known as Saffron. Slow vegetative propagation and diseases limit the production and the development of saffron. “In vitro” culture could be an effective method to overcome these limitations by improving the quantity and the quality of the planting materials. In this work, Crocus sativus L. segments corms of cultivar from the region of Taliouine (Southeast of Morocco) were used for the propagation through indirect organogenesis. To optimize the in vitro growth conditions, we have used the Murashige and Skoog medium (MS medium), supplemented with 2.4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2.4-D) and with 6-benzylaminopurin (BAP) at combination of various concentrations. Our results showed the formation of callus in 85.42% of explants that grow in a culture medium supplemented with 2,4-D combined with BAP, at a concentration of 1mg/l each. In addition, we observed that increasing the concentration of BAP in the culture medium to 1.5mg/l improved the rate of shoots initiation (0.81). In the meantime, we noted that a combination of BAP (8mg/l) and Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA; 2mg/l) has significantly improved the rate of the formation of advanced shoots (6.65). Finally, the shoots that developed were transferred to an induction medium of roots and corms. As a result, we observed that 50% of shoots tested in ½ MS medium supplemented with 2.4-D and of BAP (1 mg/l each) and 5% sucrose, formed corms. Our study provides a first database for in vitro culture of Moroccan saffron cultivars.

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Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is an autumnal herbaceous triploid plant; it is the source of saffron spice, recognized as the most expensive spice in the world. In this study, genetic diversity among 14 saffron accessions collected from different ancestral geographic areas in Morocco, Greece and France, has been assessed using inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs) markers system. Ten ISSR primers were amplified, a total of 143 fragments of which 44.05 % are polymorphic with an average of 6.3 polymorphic fragments per each primer and average of polymorphic information content (PIC) of 0.236. ISSR markers proved to be a powerful tool for assessment of genetic diversity among saffron accessions. Cluster analysis using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA), based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficient and supported by the principal coordinate analysis (PCoA), divided the studied accessions into three major groups, and showed that genetic distance is independent of geographical distance. In this paper, we report for the first time the level of genetic diversity among Moroccan saffron; this information allows an unequivocal development of a suitable approach for the conservation of C. sativus germplasm and reduce its genetic erosion.