Cultivation of Crocus Sativus
The Crocus Sativus loves warm and bright colors but it is not too fond of dry heat. The plant must be planted on warm, moist soil with the presence of carbonate. The perfect weather conditions for saffron are dry summers and rainy days.
The Crocus Sativus can tolerate normal temperature all the way down to -10° Celsius. This means that the plant can indeed tolerate winter. However, it is during this cold weather and extremely dry summers that the plant is most susceptible to disease. Extreme heat could lead the plant to insufficient or immature growth.
In October, the saffron is usually perfect for harvesting. However, with temperatures below 15°, it is hard to harvest saffron. In fact, there are only a few select places where it is perfect to cultivate the Crocus Sativus plant. And these areas are also limited because of the land area and the timeframe which allows saffron pickers to do the harvesting. Another limitation to the cultivation of this plant is the fact that saffron mother corms need to be planted every four years.
The perfect temperature for saffron is 6 ° C to 19 ° C whilst the perfect rain fall would be around 0.1 to 1.1 meters.
