Influence of Biochar and Its Mixture with Cow Manure Compost on Phenology and Growth Performance of Saffron Under Field Conditions

Balochistan province of Pakistan has more than 50% area that comes under arid climatic conditions of dry summer and cold winters. Under these conditions different arid crops including saffron has great potential to introduce and scale-up. Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) cultivation on test trials at PARC-BARDC, Quetta, Balochistan and in some of those areas by local farmers was found to be successful experience. As biochar is well-known to have influenced positively on the crop yield, this study evaluated the influence of the amendment of wood-derived biochar alone or with combination of cow manure compost in 1:1 ratio on the yield of saffron under field conditions of arid region of this province with cold winters and dry summers. The treatments were amendment of biochar at 0.34 t ha-1 and 0.68 t ha-1 rates and amendment of biochar-compost mixture at 1.37 t ha-1 and 2.7 t ha-1 rates. In this experiment, the saffron corms of uniform size (2-2.5 cm in diameter) were used. There were five treatments of biacharand experiment was laid out in Randomized Completely Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Results show that biochar-based organic amendments caused prolonged flowering period, increased flower: corm ratio by 33% -47% and increased yield of stigma by 10% - 27%. The highest stigma yield was achieved when biochar was mixed with composted manure at 2.7 t ha-1 rate.