Saffron is known as red gold, or the most expensive spice, because harvesting the stigmas is manual labour and only three stigmas can be obtained from a single flower. Consequently, to produce one gram of saffron, 150 flowers are required. The price of one kilogram can reach as much as 10,000 euros.

The bed where the saffron crocuses brought from Italy and the Netherlands are growing is not large, as this is currently just an experiment. However, the researcher assesses that saffron grown in Latvia is not impossible. When speaking about the choice to experiment with growing saffron crocuses in Latvia, the researcher cites climate change as one of the main incentives.