Opium Poppy Cultivation

Intro. Papaver somniferum is a cold season annual by Aussie standards and only does best in the cold climate areas of the continent. Time for kick off sowing downunder is mid-Autumn and the finish is early Summer, dead by Christmas day but harvest is truly done by then -- strain Tasmanians. I have no idea what ops climate/season like in the Northern Hemisphere. I can only comment on cold climate Australia for opium poppy. You'll have to do your own homework, but a good rule of thumb is adopt what onions like. They too are cold season growers. If you can't run a long season strain like Tasmanians, then run something fast like Turkish Commercial. Seed Raising Raise seedlings by sprinkling on the top of a moist potting mix outdoors when temps are 14C to 15C, as cold is needed to break the dormancy cycle. Seed trays need drainage, so if you line a bread tray with plastic (as seen in the pic) punch some holes through it with a screw driver. You can break the dormancy cycle for an expedient germination with a couple of weeks in a baggie in the crisper dish. As a side note, store seeds in paper bags in a dark cool drawer. Now I've found almost any potting mix will work. Poppy is a hardy bastard. But hey, add 1 part peat and 1 part perlite to 3 parts potting mix to make a good seed raising mix. The peat holds more water and the perlite gives a better air filled porosity. While they grow, get on with making the garden bed they'll go to.

Soil. You want good garden soil, a fine till, stacks of worms and well drained. The site must be full sun. Veggie qual soil is a must to get the results. Use hay as mulch, it cranks the worms.

Good garden soil will power plants. If you can grow veggies then poppy is as easy as pissing on your hand.

To make beds, dig over with a mattock and shovel and then till with a fork. Or if ya slack hire a rotary hoe. Build beds up by drainage trenches to break beds up into sizes you can access. Remove all weeds in the process.

Hay is vital, it increases soil fertility and lowers weed invasion. Cover in 2 sheets of newspaper, then the hay and/or straw. I like alfalfa hay as a base, then barley straw on top. Less algae on barley, you can bare foot garden. Straw/hay is also vital in keeping poppy roots cool through out the growing season. Aussie sun is intense, even if the air is refrigerator cold.

Planting out 'n Growing. Now you can sow direct to beds, IME it sux, they come up way too thick and unless thinned like carrots, they won't do as well as clump plantings.

Clump plantings are simple. Transplant from seed trays as a clump the size of your fist at 3" tall grid space to bed 600mm x 600mm apart.

A single clump at the finish has a trunk structure like this. There's 5 plants in this one.

You can see the trunks/stems at base are about 50mm wide.

Approx. 50 pods per clump.

Which is why you NEED the 600mm x 600mm space between these clumps as it's gonna get as full as a

bull's arse on the bed...capiche. You need room to get into it to harvest opium without stomping on the trunks and slaying your plot. Poppy trunks get squashed and stripped by boots. Don't walk on them and kill the goose that's laying out the good stuff...so to speak. You should also lower the water delivery to the plot just before it flowers. That way the latex flow will be hard. If after alkaloids then a good indicator is lower leaf desiccating.

You also work backwards in the plot, that way you don't wipe off the bleeding opium onto your clothes. Watch the bees too, they're in BIG numbers when in flower.

They will get to 5ft tall in good soil, full sun, well drained...get a book on veggie growing. What is worth stating is a taller crop is a better one as you can tend at a comfortable height, i.e. less stooping on the back scraping pods.

The ^above strain is the single red, it's a Tasmanian. Has a long season, high morphine content. Works nice as a garden ornamental too.

Closer look...

Of course, you don't have to broad bed 'em, you can embellish a flower garden to stealth them in.

...and if you just want colour, well grow any strain you like. Colour or drugs, you decide based on the strain you grow.

The main pests and diseases of poppy IME are slugs and snails at seedling stage and caterpillar on the pods. Just use snail baits and on the caterpilla, spray with Dipel. Botrytis too can attack the pods as well

as powdery mildew on the foliage. I'm not a fan of fungicides, I believe in growing what works. Hence I don't get much P&D drama, certainly not with Tasmanians -- they're a solid work horse. What's next? Ok, you've got a plot of poppy, high alkaloid content, it's ready to bleed. Make a scraping tool. You start the bleeds about 3 to 5 days after the petals fall off. You only go 0.5mm to 1mm deep. Too shallow, she won't bleed. Too deep and she bleeds back inside the pod wasting it. You'll work it out soon enough.

Best I've found to scrape in the morning, then collect in the evening. It sets in the sun. That way errant dews/frosts won't wipe off the work. If it's going to rain, hold back on scraping or you'll lose it.

Raw opium off ornamental strains...

The darker it is, the better the quality IME. Note the difference!! So grow the correct strain for the specific task, drugs or colour?...don't forget what your goals are. This

is single red Tasmanian raw opium, 'dis be da shit. Smokes well just as you see it.

Wanna make it stronger and a better smoke? Add some water to a bowl to dissolve the raw collected latex. The return is approx. 2/3 of what raw latex you had.

Double saucepan heat it to dissolve it. Water will go amber. Some people lower the pH with lemon juice or vinegar. I haven't noted any difference.

Filter it through a 73u bubble bag.

Toss that waxy waste material.

Pour the caught liquid back to a pyrex dish and double saucepan cook to evap off the water.

You get a layer like fine chocolate glass. Cling film on top so don't lose it as you scrape it up...

This is the goods. Smokes up easy.

Wanna embellish it? Make some hash, yeah have the materials to do that...

Go to http://www.bubblebag.com as I won't bother explaining how to make ice hash. But you don't want the hash dried like a normal hash product when mixed to cooked smoke grade opium, you'll never get the two to "set" together. So don't have your hash like this.

Make up some more hash, this is 73u full filtered preemo ice-hash.

Some 25u preemo, it acts as the "binding agent" -- very sticky.

Mixed to preemo ice hash, shape with a spoon. Don't touch, the cooked smoke grade opium is water soluble. You want it to dry natural, so place somewhere warm, like on top of a tropical fish tank. The fluro under the hood will dry it nice.

As it dries, it will go a jet black colour...

Once dry, break off small chunks to a glass pipe, acrid and yet spicy, full drug indulgence.

So you want to make some edible grade eh? Best to use pods that are dried, seeds removed and crush to a dust. Don't have a pic of that. But you're looking at every 300 grams dry seedless pods ground to a "poppy flour" will furnish 100 grams putty.

Cook it, gentle boil for 2hrs. You can throw in a cup of lemon juice or a 1/4 cup of vinegar. The lower pH is said to aid extracting out the morphine. IME, it makes no real difference, Tassie pods kick serious arse!

Strain it, in this case through a 250u bubble bag to a 20lt bucket...

Toss the caught matter, clean pot and add the liquid caught in the bucket back to the pot and boil off the water.

When you get to the last 1/2" deep or so, it's gonna get thick and it will prolly burn on the hobs, so tip to a pyrex dish. Sit it on a heat pad and let it evap off slow over 48hrs. Put a tea towel over the top, stops dust/insects getting in it. Hey, you're gonna eat it, be clean.

Please note, use the correct strain. Ornamental poppy strains will give a brown edible grade putty, not nearly as good as the black stuff.

Once evap'ed off, she sets like a putty. Scrape it up, can be tough stuff. You might wanna use a large flat head screw driver.

Roll to balls to eat, 3 grams is a solid dose. Find your level, it will make you very ill if you OD. Wrap excess up in a dusting of plain wheat flour, cover in cling film and pop into the freezer. I have had it keep for 3 years so far with no drama and as good as the day it was made.

Well, that's it. Happy growing and O'ing. Originally found at http://www.shroomery.org