Short Lecture "Saffron: The "golden flower" of Ukraine"

Due to its medicinal properties, the global commercial demand for saffron (Crocus sativus) is constantly on the rise. Saffron has a long history of use as anti-cancer, hepatoprotective, and hypolipidemic agent, and is also recognised as a source of apocarotenoids, flavonoids, and triterpenoids. Over 418 tons/year of saffron is produced worldwide from 108,000 ha in Iran, 3,674 ha in India, and 1,000 ha in Greece. Since 2015, saffron has been cultivated in the Ukraine with a total volume of about 0.07 tons/year from 20 ha. From 75– 100 saffron flowers, 225–300 stigmas are collected, from which only 0.5 g of dry stigmas are obtained. Saffron quality depends on environmental conditions, processing, value chains, handling etc., which has an effect on the main marker compounds content (crocins, picrocrocin, safranal). HPLC and UV-Vis analyses of 35 saffron samples from 12 Ukrainian regions made it possible to establish that the crocin and picrocrocin amount is higher in the northeastern regions of Ukraine and decreases closer to the southwestern areas of cultivation ([Table 1]). Positive correlations were found for stigma yield with increasing light duration and less rainfall. Picrocrocin and safranal content in samples was influenced by longitude, latitude, rainfall amount, and duration of solar radiation. This chemical and agrotechnical research on saffron cultivation made it possible to develop and implement an SOP for saffron production in accordance with GACP recommendations, which significantly improved the quality of HMP.

Table 1 Details of saffron samples from Ukraine and their quality characteristics according to ISO.

 

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publication History

Article published online:
16 November 2023