ABSTRACT
Saffron cultivation is not highly mechanized, even in this day and age: although it requires high labour input during the most important growing phases, there are no machines capable of totally mechanizing this crop, and research up to now has always tried to adapt existing machinery to each individual phase of its cultivation, rather than design specific machines. The reasons for this can be attributed to the delicacy of certain operations and to the marginal nature of this type of cultivation. In fact, corms are very delicate and need to be handled with care; they also vary considerably in size, and this makes mechanical handling difficult. Moreover production is limited to a small anatomical part of the plant which is difficult to reach and to separate out.
