Citation: Lorenzo, C.; Shadmani, G.; Valouzi, H.; Moratalla-López, N.; Bahlolzada, H.; Sánchez-Gómez, R.; Dizadji, A.; Alonso, G.L. Saffron Stigmas Apocarotenoid Contents from Saffron Latent Virus (SaLV)-Infected Plants with Different Origins and Dehydration Temperatures. Horticulturae 2023, 9, 933. https://doi.org/10.3390/ horticulturae9080933 Academic Editor: Yiguo Hong Received: 24 July 2023 Revised: 13 August 2023 Accepted: 15 August 2023 Published: 17 August 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). horticulturae Article Saffron Stigmas Apocarotenoid Contents from Saffron Latent Virus (SaLV)-Infected Plants with Different Origins and Dehydration Temperatures Cándida Lorenzo 1,† , Golnaz Shadmani 2,† , Hajar Valouzi 2 , Natalia Moratalla-López 1 , Habibullah Bahlolzada 3 , Rosario Sánchez-Gómez 1 , Akbar Dizadji 2, * and Gonzalo L. Alonso 1, * 1 Cátedra de Química Agrícola, ETS de Ingeniería Agronómica y de Montes y Biotecnología, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario, 02071 Albacete, Spain; candida.lorenzo@uclm.es (C.L.); nataliamoratallalopez@gmail.es (N.M.-L.); rosario.sgomez@uclm.es (R.S.-G.) 2 Department of Plant Protection, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj 31587-77871, Iran; golnaz.shadmani@ut.ac.ir (G.S.); hvalouzi@gmail.com (H.V.) 3 Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Bamyan University, Bamyan 1601, Afghanistan; habib_bahlol@bu.edu.af * Correspondence: adizaji@ut.ac.ir (A.D.); gonzalo.alonso@uclm.es (G.L.A.); Tel.: +98-26-3281-8705 (A.D.); +34-967-599-210 (G.L.A.); Fax: +98-26-3223-8529 (A.D.); +34-967-599-238 (G.L.A.) † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Saffron is a spice that is obtained by dehydrating the stigmas of the Crocus sativus flower. Iran is the country that produces the largest amount of saffron, exceeding 90% of world production. Currently, there is a growing medicinal use which implies that there is more demand than supply worldwide, in turn, a large amount of labor is required to obtain it; for these two reasons, it reaches a high price in the international market. This demand is due to the high concentration of apocarotenoid metabolites that it biosynthesizes. In this work, the content of these metabolites of saffron from six production areas of Iran and neighbouring countries infected with saffron latent virus (SaLV) and dehydrated at two temperatures is compared. The corms of the six provenances were planted in a homogeneous plot and the stigmas analyzed were those of the second year after planting. The analysis showed that corms do not completely retain the memory of their original origin. In general, the ratio of the sum of mmol/kg of HTCC derivatives to the sum of the mmol of crocins is greater than two. This implies that the biosynthesis of saffron apocarotenoids due to the degradation of β-carotene towards HTCC is more important than that of zeaxanthin formation, which later gives HTCC and crocetin dialdehyde. Keywords: Crocus sativus; crocins; picrocrocin; safranal; HPLC-DAD 1. Introduction Crocus sativus L. (C.s.) is a plant belonging to the family Iridaceae. It is sterile [1], and its reproduction occurs through the budding of its underground, thickened stems called corms. This asexual reproduction results in no genetic differences among cultivated plants, and there are no crosses or different varieties found worldwide. It is the same variety that has adapted to various soil, climate, and cultural conditions since its origin, which is undeniably represented in the pictorial reproductions of Minoan culture at the palace of Knossos in Crete or the frescoes of the archaeological site of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini, which are dated before the eruption of the last active volcano in the Aegean Sea in 1615 BC [2]. From then until the present day, for over thirty-six centuries, this plant has been cultivated similarly to obtain the dried stigmas of its flowers, which constitute the spice saffron. Iran, India, Greece, Afghanistan, Morocco, Spain, Italy, China, and Azerbaijan are the major saffron-producing countries worldwide [3]. Saffron production is an old traditional Horticulturae 2023, 9, 933. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae9080933 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/horticulturae