Spices and Condiments (1+1)

Picking of flowers for obtaining saffron

• Picking of flowers for obtaining saffron The flowering period starts in middle or late October and lasts only until the first or second week of November. The flowers must be picked each morning before the sun gets too hot. The flowers are cleaned during the day and the style and stigmas are separated from the perianth.
• The separation of the stigmas from the perianth has to be carried out every day, otherwise the flowers wilt. If the flowers are left for a couple of days, operations become very difficult. The collected flowers are picked up individually. An employee for this job holds a flower in her hand and, with the thumb-nail of the same hand, removes the pistils below the perianth, at the same time tearing off the stigmas with the fingers of the right hand and depositing these in the containers held for this purpose. Following a rather sluggish period in the first two years, the growth and production of saffron flowers reaches its peak by the third year and, after about six years, the bulbs are uprooted for subsequent planting elsewhere leaving the land fallow for about five years. Interestingly, the bulbs continue the cycle for 10- 15 years, new bulbs being produced annually while the old ones rot.