Blue Light Improves Photosynthetic Performance and Biomass Partitioning toward Harvestable Organs in Saffron (Crocus sativus L.).

Shirin Moradi,Mohsen Kafi,Sasan Aliniaeifard,Majid Shokrpour,Moein Moosavi-Nezhad,Hazem M Kalaji,Jacek Wróbel,Seyed Alireza Salami,Carsten Pedersen

doi:10.3390/cells10081994

Abstract

Saffron is a valuable plant and one of the most expensive spices worldwide. Nowadays, there is a tendency to produce this crop in indoor plant production systems. However, the production of saffron is restricted by the need for the reproduction of high-quality corms. In this study, we investigated the effect of different ratios of red (R) and blue (B) light spectra (including 100% B (monochromatic B), 75%, 50%, 40%, 25% B, and 0% B (monochromatic R) on the photosynthetic performance and biomass partitioning as well as morphological and biochemical characteristics of saffron. The growth of flower, root, and corm was improved by increasing the proportion of B to R light. B-grown plants were characterized by the highest photosynthetic functionality with efficient electron transport and lower energy dissipation when compared to R-grown plants. B light directed biomass toward the corms and floral organs, while R light directed it toward the leaves. In saffron, the weight of a daughter corm is of great importance since it determines the yield of the next year. As the ratio of B to R light increased, the daughter corms also became heavier, at the cost of reducing their number, though increasing the proportion of B-enhanced antioxidant capacity as well as the activity of ascorbate peroxidase and catalase while superoxide dismutase activity was enhanced in R-grown plants. In conclusion, B light increased the production of high-quality daughter corms and altered biomass partitioning towards harvestable organs (corms and flowers) in saffron plants.

Highlights

The dried stigma of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) from the Iridaceae family is known as red gold since it is one of the most expensive spices worldwide
The highest number of flowers per corm, flower Fresh weight (FW), and dry weights (DW) were observed in B-light-grown plants
The highest stigma FW and DW were observed under B light

Summary

Introduction

The dried stigma of saffron (Crocus sativus L.) from the Iridaceae family is known as red gold since it is one of the most expensive spices worldwide. The cultivation of saffron has remained invariant for thousands of years, mostly being produced in farmlands This form of cultivation leads to several problems such as very low water use efficiency, increasing expenditures on human labor for weed management, irrigation, and flower harvest, lower ability to use mechanization, and most importantly, lower yield per area of cultivation. It seems that shifting from traditional cultivation to closed plant production systems, commonly known as vertical farming, which benefits from mechanization during production processes, would pave the way to improve the profitability of saffron cultivation [3,4,5]

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Results

Conclusion