Growing saffron indoors

Step One: is purchasing saffron bulbs.

The best time to purchase saffron bulbs is mid-summer. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, August is the ideal month for buying bulbs. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, the best time to purchase saffron bulbs is in January.

Why is mid-summer the best time to purchase saffron bulbs?
Because during this time, the bulbs are in their dormancy period and do not have any roots or leaves. Considering that the distance from the source to your farm might be long, the dormancy of the bulbs ensures they are not damaged during transportation.

Saffron Bulb Suppliers
Saffron bulb suppliers usually collect the bulbs from farms during the first month of summer.After transportation to sorting centers, excess soil is removed, and smaller or diseased bulbs are separated from the healthy ones.
If you want to have a full list of saffron corm suppliers recommend to read my book.

For better understanding watch this video

Which Bulbs Are Suitable for Growing saffron indoors ?
Each bulb should weigh no less than 20 grams, and when the outer layer of the bulb is removed, there should be no black spots visible on its surface.And when you put six saffron bulbs in the palm of your hand, there is no space to add another bulb.

Step Two: building & equipment

Building a Suitable Space for Storing Bulbs Until Flower Harvest and Bulb Multiplication.

To get started, you can begin in a 50-square-meter hall. The ideal dimensions for such a hall are 10 by 5 meters, with a height of 4 to 5 meters.

In a 50-square-meter hall, you can accommodate up to three tons of saffron bulbs.
Note: Three tons of bulbs will yield approximately three kilograms of premium-grade dried saffron.

Watch the video (building)

After preparing the saffron room, you should organize it with shelving. You can use wooden, aluminum, plastic, or galvanized shelves. In a hall, you can place two rows of shelves, and the number of shelf levels can go up to seven.

After finishing the shelving, the next step is to install a heating and cooling system, with the best option being an air handling unit (AHU).

Temperature control in a saffron farm.

The heating and cooling system is connected through a plastic duct that runs between the two rows of shelves. This ensures uniform air distribution throughout the space.

Then, wooden or plastic boxes are used to place the bulbs on the shelves.

To measure environmental factors, you will need a thermometer, a carbon dioxide meter, a lux meter, and a hygrometer.

After equipping the hall, you can proceed with ordering the saffron bulbs.

Step Three: Receiving saffron bulbs

After receiving the saffron bulbs, open the boxes in a dark room and then cut the outer skin of the bulbs. During this process, some bulbs may be damaged. Separate the damaged bulbs, as they are more susceptible to fungal diseases. Once sorted, place the bulbs on the shelves.

Step Four: Flowering

Next, maintain the room temperature at 25°C and the humidity at 75% until the sprout emerge from the bulbs. Once the sprout appear, reduce the temperature to 23°C.

When the saffron sprout reach to 5 centimeters we control temperature on 20 centigrade.

When the sprouts reach about 10 centimeters in height, keep the temperature between 17°C and 20°C, and maintain humidity above 90%. When the sprouts reach 15 centimeters, the flowers are ready to emerge from the sprouts.

Two days before flowering

Flowers appear from the top of sprout

Flowering period

The entire flowering period lasts between 15 to 20 days. The saffron flowers should be harvested when they are still in bud form, before they fully open. Do not allow the flowers to bloom. Harvesting the flowers in their closed bud state significantly increases the quality of the saffron, sometimes by several times.

Before opening the flowers we should harvest them.

For every 70 kilograms of fresh flowers, you will get one kilogram of dried saffron. Additionally, for every 140,000 fresh flowers, you will get one kilogram of dried saffron. This means that every 2,000 flowers will yield one kilogram of fresh saffron flowers.

After harvesting, the red stigma (or saffron) should be separated from the purple petals, and then the red part (stigma) should be separated from the white style (the white thread-like part).

The red parts (saffron) should be dried separately, and the white parts (the style) should also be dried separately. The white parts generally make up about 10% of the saffron’s price. For example, if saffron costs $10,000 per kilogram, each kilogram of the white parts, which are attached to the red stigma, would be worth $1,000.

Flowering in the Northern Hemisphere occurs in October, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it happens in April.

Step Five: Drying

The best way to dry saffron or machine method
Undoubtedly, all the stages of saffron production on the one hand and drying it on the other hand are equally important, there were farmers who had the highest yield of saffron and their saffron quality was very high, but due to lack of knowledge about drying saffron, their one-year efforts were lost overnight.
The machine method of drying saffron is the safest possible method and the simplest method. In this method, saffron is placed only on one floor, of course, so that ten layers of saffron are placed on the same floor, so that first a layer of silk is spread on the floor. Then we spread the stigmas on the silk and then we put a layer of silk on the stigmas and then we pour the stigma again and we repeat this ten times and then put in the dryer.

After harvesting the flowers and separating them, saffron should be dried at a temperature of 60 to 70°C. There are two methods for drying:

1. Machine Drying: This method dries and presses the saffron simultaneously. The saffron is dried at 70°C, and the drying process takes less than 10 minutes.

2. Traditional Hand Drying: This method takes around two hours for the saffron to dry.

In the traditional saffron drying method, saffron is placed on a wooden frame and positioned about half a meter away from a heat source such as a fireplace or a heater.

If your saffron production is less than 2 kilograms per year, the traditional drying method is recommended, as purchasing a drying machine for less than 2 kilograms of saffron is not economically viable.

Step Six: Propagation

After finishing flowering

Starting propagation of Saffron bulbs!

The new bulbs are appearing beside the mother bulbs and mother bulbs gradually will be disappeared.

After the flowering is completed, we add the formulated substrate to the shelves to encourage the bulbs to multiply, so that new bulbs will produce flowers the following year. The bulb that produces flowers will gradually decompose over the course of the three winter months, and the lifespan of each mother plant is typically less than a year. New bulbs, or daughter bulbs, form next to the mother bulb, and during the three winter months, the new bulbs mature and will flower the following year.

The multiplication factor for saffron bulbs is 1.2, meaning that if we purchase one ton of saffron bulbs in the first year, we will have one ton and 200 kilograms of saffron bulbs the following year.

Irrigation and Fertilization
Before and during the flowering period, saffron does not require any fertilization or irrigation. Fertilization and irrigation only take place during three months of winter: January, February, and March in the Northern Hemisphere, and May, June, and July in the Southern Hemisphere, which are the months for bulb multiplication.

In the first month of multiplication, which is the first month of winter, roots typically appear, and the leaves reach about 5 centimeters in height. At this stage, high-consumption fertilizers such as nitrogen, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus should be added to the plant, as these elements are better absorbed through the roots. Along with these elements, humic acid can help promote root development.

In the second month, the leaves grow to about 50 centimeters. At this stage, low-consumption fertilizers like manganese, copper, iron, and zinc should be sprayed onto the plant and leaves. Additionally, amino acids and seaweed extract can be sprayed on the leaves.

In the third month, the saffron leaves reach about one meter in height, and low-consumption elements should be sprayed again as foliar feeding.

Irrigation During Multiplication
Each ton of saffron bulbs requires 300,000 liters of water during the multiplication phase. Given that the saffron farm environment is fully covered, an appropriate aeration system should be added during the multiplication period to ensure proper airflow.

Packaging saffron

All kind of saffron

1- super Negin saffron (the best quality of saffron)
Included only red parts of stigma, drying with the machine. And the shape of this saffron is like a sperm or trumpet!

2- Negin saffron only red parts of stigma are included the difference with super begin saffron is this kind of saffron dry with traditional methods and does not have the beauty of super begin saffron.

3- Dokhtarpich saffron or bunch in some cases farmers do not have time to separate the stigma from the style they dry the whole bunch(stigma plus style that are connected together)!

4- Style
Style or yellow part that is connected to the stigma! After separating the stigma from the petal, the stigma is thread-like and consists of two parts, yellow and red. The red part is actually the most expensive part of saffron, and the yellow part attached to it is called style, which makes up ten percent of the total price of saffron.