Saffron, as one of the most expensive agricultural product around the world, has an important place among Iran’s non-oil exports. Therefore, it is important to solve the problems in Iran's saffron industry as the world’s largest saffron producer. Thus, this study attempts to identify the challenges that directly and indirectly affect the saffron industry and cause stagnation. The challenges...

BACKGROUND Saffron and its constituents are widely used around the world as a spice and medicinal plant. Different constituents in medicinal herbs are thought to have the potential to induce useful and/or adverse effects. So, efforts have been made to find the best and most valuable tools to reduce their adverse effects. OBJECTIVES According to Iranian traditional medicine (ITM), it is believ...

BACKGROUND Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are relevant allergens, and have recently been proposed as model plant allergens from fruit, vegetables, seeds, and pollens. However, no LTP spice allergen has been characterized to date. OBJECTIVES To identify and isolate saffron LTPs and to explore their relevance in saffron allergy. METHODS Six patients with rhinitis and positive skin prick test ...

BACKGROUND The cultivation of saffron is expanding through the southeast of Iran, and allergy to saffron pollen occurs in workers involved in processing this plant. We aimed to clone, sequence and express a major allergen involved in saffron pollen allergy, and to compare the recombinant with the natural allergen. METHODS The N-terminal amino acid sequence of Cro s 1, an allergen from saffron...

Crocus sativus, known as saffron, is used in folk medicine for treatment of different types of diseases, and its anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging activities have been demonstrated. The present study evaluated gentamicin nephrotoxicity in saffron treated rats. Male Wistar rats (200-250 g) were treated with saffron (40 or 80 mg/k/d) for 10 days, or saffron (40 or 80 mg/ kg/d) for 10 ...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a light purple flower with reddish colored stigma. It is one of the most expensive spices with a range of quality in its color and aroma. A few key countries involved in saffron commercialization are Spain, Iran, Greece, Morocco, India and China. The main chemical constituents found in saffron are safranal, picrocrocin, crocetin and its glycoside, crocins. These c...

In previous works on authentic samples of saffron of known history (harvest and processing year, storage conditions, and length of time) some biomarkers were proposed using both FT-IR and NMR metabolomics regarding the shelf life of the product. This work addresses the difficulties to trace back the "age" of commercial saffron samples of unknown history, sets a limit value above which these pro...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) has been considered as a medicinal plant since ancient times and also widely used as food additive for its color, taste and odor. The pharmacological properties of saffron and its main constituents, crocin and safranal have been evaluated using different in vivo and in vitro models. Additionally, other lines of studies have found toxicological effects of saffron. How...

The Saffron Yield Estimation Model (SYEM) was modified for salinity conditions, cowmanure application and planting methods using two-year experiments data in Badjgah region ofIran. A split-split plot arrangement was conducted in complete randomized block design duringtwo years with irrigation water salinity levels (0.45 (fresh water, S1), 1.0 (S2), 2.0 (S3) and 3.0(S4) dS m-1) as the main plot,...

in order to evaluate the effects of planting date and corm density on yield and some other traits of saffron under climatic conditions of malayer in the west of iran, an experiment was conducted using split plots based on randomized complete blocks design with four replications. different planting dates (15th july, 15th august and 15th september) were allocated in the main plots and different c...