Crocus sativus (L.) Grown in Pots with High Volume Capacity: From a Case of Study to a Patent

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) cultivation is widespread in different parts of the world, including various Mediterranean areas. The crop management techniques, requiring intensive manual labor from planting, weeding, flower picking to the collecting of stigmas, contribute greatly to the high price of the spice. Traditionally, the corms are cultivated in field soil and only stigmas are collected to obtain the spice while the flower’s remaining parts, corresponding to about 90% of the total biomass, are discarded and thrown away. In this study, in order to overcome some difficulties occurring during the whole crop cycle (pathogens, fungi, pests, weeds, etc.), as well as to ease and increase floral bioresidue recovery, an alternative planting way for Crocus sativus L. was proposed relying on the use of large pots. For this aim, corms with 3.0–3.5 cm diameter size, from two different geographical origins (Spain, Holland), were planted in plastic pots with a volume of 250 L or 350 L, placed in two different areas of the Basilicata region (Italy). The effect of this new growing condition on dry stigma yield as well as daughter corm yield and size was evaluated. Although this cultivation system is more expensive than the traditional one, it offers numerous and huge advantages. Among them, it allows us to maintain a more correct posture and to preserve flower integrity during harvesting. The structural integrity of the tepals is a very important factor to obtain innovative dried flowers in their original tridimensional shape (3D). Consequently, the proposed cultivation system facilitates the achievement of a real “niche product” with high added value (absence of pollen grains). Moreover, the qualitative analysis of the spice, performed according to the International Standardization Organization Normative 3632 (ISO 3632-2/1:2010/2011), classified all investigated saffron samples in the first qualitative category. The results of the first three trial years are very exciting and promising as they are similar to those from the literature carried out in ground soil. However, corms from Spain gave the best results. Further investigations are in progress in order to optimize this alternative cultivation system.