Saffron harvesting takes place between the end of October and the half of November. It lasts about 20 days. Flowers are picked by the emerging point or in the pre-anthesis period, because, owing to flower anthesis, stigmas lose their fragrance. Therefore, to mantain an inalterated organoleptic quality of stigmas, harvesting takes place in the first hours of the day when flowers are still closed. After harvesting, flowers are taken in a close place and subjected to the second phase called weeding.

This phase is extremely delicate. Flower is opened and then stigmas are separated from the rest of it. To obtain a product as neat as possible, the lower part of any stigma, gradually decolorating (from orange to yellow to white) and with lower colouring and flavouring power, is removed. After extracting, stigmas are touched as less as possible to avoid any depreciation.