W. Hourani1,2, Z. El Sebaaly1,2, Z. Allaw2, V. Koutev1 and Y. N. Sassine1,2
1 University of Forestry, Faculty of Agronomy, Department of Agronomy, 1797 Sofia, Bulgaria
2 Lebanese University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Plant Production, Beirut, Lebanon
Hourani, W., El Sebaaly, Z., Allaw, Z., Koutev, V. & Sassine, Y. N. (2025). Separate and combined effects of Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP), organic (Seaumic), and nano-fertilizers (Lithovit®-Forte and nano-chelate Super Plus ZFM++) on the performance of small and medium-sized saffron (Crocus oreocreticus) corms. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 31(1), 139–149
Amelioration in saffron production and quality has been reported as a result of using organic fertilizers, nanofertilizers and Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP). The study investigated the separate and combined effects of various fertilizers (Seaumic, nano-chelate Super Plus ZFM++, Lithovit®-Forte) and SAP on the performance of small-sized (SS: 4–6 g) and medium-sized (MS: 6–8 g) saffron corms. Fertilizers applied with SAP hastened leaf emergence by 4.3–10.8 days for SS corms compared to their use without SAP, and flowering date by 11.8–20.6 days in SS corms and 16.3–22.8 days in MS corms, compared with control. Harvest was the earliest in MS/Seaumic and MS/Seaumic/SAP (20.8 and 20.0 DAP, respectively). Compared to control, leaf number of MS corms increased by 5.3 and 3.8 because of Lithovit®-Forte applied with and without SAP, respectively.
Seaumic and Lithovit®-Forte showed superior effect on leaf length than nano-chelate Super Plus ZFM, whether applied with or without SAP. Improvement in flower number per m2 reached 65.1% in MS/Seaumic/SAP compared to control. Without SAP, Seaumic and nano-chelate Super Plus ZFM improved dry stigma yield by 43.9 and 33.7% in SS-corms and 60 and 50.7% in MS-corms, respectively, and with SAP, they improved it by 71.4 and 72.3% in SS-corms and 90.4 and 79.6% in MS-corms, respectively. The highest fresh stigma yield, dry stigma yield, yield of daughter corms, and number of daughter corms were in MS/Seaumic/SAP (2.01 g/m2, 1.11 g/m2, 850 g/m2, and 73.5, respectively). The majority of treatments affected crocin and picrocrocin contents (higher than control), but not safranal. Saffron production can be optimized by applying Seaumic or Nano-chelate Super Plus ZFM with SAP.