Table 1.
Physiochemical properties of the soil used in the study.
Table 2.
Percentage emergence of Crocus sativus at Bahawalpur.
Fig 1.
Bar plot of multiple comparisons of means using Tukey’s honest significant difference (HSD) test.
(A) Shoot Fresh weight (g), (B) Shoot Dry weight(g), (C) Corm Fresh weight (g), (D) Corm Dry weight (g), (E) Plant Fresh weight (g), (F) Plant Dry weight (g). Means with different letters are significantly different at alpha 0.05 from each other. T1, T2, and T3 represent sowing depths as 10cm, 15cm, and 20cm while t1, t2, and t3 represent corm sizes as 05-10g, 10.1-15g, 15.1-20g respectively.
Fig 2.
Bar plot of multiple comparison of means using Tukey’s honest significant difference test.
(A) number of leaves, (B) number of stolons, (C) number of corms. Means with different letters are significantly different at alpha 0.05 from each other. T1, T2, and T3 represent sowing depths as 10cm, 15cm, and 20cm while t1, t2, and t3 represent corm sizes as 05-10g, 10.1-15g, and 15.1-20g respectively. Further examination of the post-hoc comparisons (Fig 2A) indicates that large (t3) and intermediate (t2) sized corms produced significantly more leaves compared to small corms (t1), averaged across planting depths. Depth itself did not significantly impact leaf counts. While greater initial corm size enhanced leaf productivity, planting depth had negligible effects either independently or in combination with size. The lack of significant depth or interaction effects suggests leaf initiation rates depend predominantly on initial propagule size alone. Therefore, saffron producers aiming to maximize foliage numbers should focus efforts on sowing the largest viable corms, rather than precision depth matching.