Organo-mineral fertilization regimes trigger growth and stigma yield of temperate saffron (Crocus sativus L.)

Abstract

Integrated nutrient management (INM) is an environment friendly and ecologically adoptable approach of plant nutrition to sustain crop productivity and maintain soil fertility of fragile agricultural ecosystems. A three-year field experiment on saffron was conducted involving 12 fertilization regimes: control; urea (UN) = 100 kg•ha -1 ; poultry manure (PM) = 100 kg•ha -1 ; farmyard manure (FYM) = 100 kg•ha -1 ; PM 50 + FYM 50 ; UN 75 + PM 25 ; UN 50 + PM 50 ; UN 25 + PM 75 ; UN 75 + FYM 25 ; UN 50 + FYM 50 ; UN 25 + FYM 75 ; and UN 50 + PM 25 + FYM 25 . Results showed that PM alone and combined with 50% UN (UN 50 + PM 50 ) were effective compared to the controls in increasing the number of flowers (58%), flower dry weight (59%), stigma length (70%), dry weight of stigma (40%), number of daughter corms plant -1 (35%), and corm diameter (71%) of saffron over years. In addition, the same treatment combination increased corm weight (96%), corm yield (96%), and stigma yield (35%) over controls across the years. This treatment combination was followed by UN 50 + PM 25 + FYM 25 , while UN 50 alone did not perform at par to the rest of the fertilization regimes. These results showed that UN 50 + PM 50 might be developed as potent strategy for boosting the growth and yield (stigma and daughter corms yield) of saffron in temperate climatic conditions.