On 13/09/2017 03:39, Judy Glattstein wrote: > Nice BBC article about saffron growing / selling in Afghanistan. And Iran. Here in the North West of England my saffron crocus are just appearing. I doubt they will flower. Stories about commercial saffron growing come round every year. The other tale is that it is a single cultivated clone which no one knows the origin of. Maybe the market is not big enough for someone to genetically engineer a plant that grows easily and produces lots of saffron. The BBC did a good programme "The Spice Trail" [1] one episode of which featured saffron cultivation - looked like hard labour. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=S1r2M2YK9wg [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spice_Trail/ -- David Pilling http://www.davidpilling.com/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…