Multi-site evaluation of the productivity among saffron (Crocus sativus L.) for clonal selection purposes

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) produces the most valuable spice and it has various medicinal, aromatic, and dyeing uses. It is sterile and asexually propagated through progeny corms. Its genetic variability is limited, but an extent of phenotypic plasticity is stated and epigenetically explained. To our knowledge, few studies and limited data are available to identify the performant accession to develop an efficient clonal selection. In this study, a multifactorial design of four Moroccan accessions is considered in two different cultivation sites for three years, with 7440 plants that were individually analyzed. Analysis of variance shows that `Agadir melloul' (L2) accession is significantly qualified as superior in both locations, especially in the second coastal site (S2). Performance scoring and ranking and principal component analysis based on eight quantitative traits confirm the superiority of S2L2 compared with other combinations. Moreover, the number of flowers per mother com trait (NF) showed high phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation. This character is very heritable (0.59). This heritability is associated with high genetic advance (11.11) and high genetic advance as a percentage of the mean (1.13). Hence, this key trait is less affected by the environmental variation, and clonal selection can be scored through this character. It is then possible to enhance the mean value of the number of flowers from 9.82 to 20.93 through direct selection among the collection. This study is useful in the choice of performant accessions with the aim of improving saffron productivity.