Organo-mineral fertilization regimes trigger growth and stigma yield of temperate saffron (Crocus sativus L.)

: Integrated nutrient management (INM) is an environment friendly and ecologically adoptable approach of plant nutrition to sustain crop productivity and maintain soil fertility of fragile agricultural ecosystems. A three-year field experiment on saffron was conducted involving 12 fertilization regimes: control; urea (UN) = 100 kg · ha -1 ; poultry manure (PM) = 100 kg · ha -1 ; farmyard manure (FYM) = 100 kg · ha -1 ; PM 50 + FYM 50 ; UN 75 + PM 25 ; UN 50 + PM 50 ; UN 25 + PM 75 ; UN 75 + FYM 25 ; UN 50 + FYM 50 ; UN 25 + FYM 75 ; and UN 50 + PM 25 + FYM 25 . Results showed that PM alone and combined with 50% UN (UN 50 + PM 50 ) were effective compared to the controls in increasing the number of flowers (58%), flower dry weight (59%), stigma length (70%), dry weight of stigma (40%), number of daughter corms plant -1 (35%), and corm diameter (71%) of saffron over years. In addition, the same treatment combination increased corm weight (96%), corm yield (96%), and stigma yield (35%) over controls across the years. This treatment combination was followed by UN 50 + PM 25 + FYM 25 , while UN 50 alone did not perform at par to the rest of the fertilization regimes. These results showed that UN 50 + PM 50 might be developed as potent strategy for boosting the growth and yield (stigma and daughter corms yield) of saffron in temperate climatic conditions.