News Warming World, Potent Poppies

[Gaz_hmmmm]

http://scienceline.org/2009/08/environment-ortlip-poppies-opium-climate-change/

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

Warming World, Potent Poppies


Scienceline.org
By: Erik Ortlip
3 August 2009

Excerpts:

Rising carbon dioxide levels lead to higher concentrations of opiates in poppies.

Greater concentrations of carbon dioxide in a warming world may have a drastic effect on the potency of opium poppies, according to a new study. While this increase might mean more morphine available for legal pharmaceutical uses, the painkiller is also the main ingredient in heroin.

The current crop of poppies is twice as potent as those grown at carbon dioxide levels seen in 1950, says Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory. If projections hold, the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase morphine levels three-fold by 2050 and by 4.5 times by 2090.

“I was surprised to see that the alkaloid levels changed so quickly,” says Ziska. Morphine is part of a class of chemicals called alkaloids, which plants produce to ward off bugs, birds and other natural dangers. While toxic to some animals, humans use hundreds of plant alkaloids in various ways. Cocaine, caffeine, capsaicin (which makes chili peppers hot), lysergic acid (a precursor for LSD) and the anti-malarial drug quinine are all examples of alkaloids.

The speed of the biological changes affecting plants’ alkaloid levels suggests that the climate may have a greater impact on plant life than computer models had generally predicted, Ziska says. Earlier studies by Ziska had shown that certain alkaloids decrease in some plants as carbon dioxide increases, including lower concentrations of nicotine in tobacco.

The net result, according to Ziska, is that climate change’s impacts on plants are likely to be chaotic and difficult to predict. For example, he says, “wheat may make more seeds, but we may have stronger poison ivy and poppies.”

Changes in alkaloid levels may pose a challenge to public health as carbon dioxide continues to build up in the atmosphere. The World Health Organization estimates that over 3.5 billion people rely on plants for part of their primary health care. This includes the U.S. population, where 25 percent of prescribed drugs contain an ingredient derived from plants.

Ziska’s research illustrates just how little we know about the biological effects of climate change. While predictions of increased drought and insect infestations in a warmer world are bad news for plants, the carbon-enriched atmosphere would give them more fuel to burn, helping many species grow bigger and produce more seeds. Meanwhile, a secondary set of chemical reactions not related to plant growth may also be influenced by levels of
atmospheric carbon. These reactions create many of the chemicals used in medicines and are so complex that, for many plants, says Ziska, “we don’t have any idea how climate change will affect them.”

To learn what global warming would mean for some plants important to the pharmaceutical industry, Ziska, in conjunction with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, grew the wild poppy, Papaver setigerum, inside growth chambers from seeds to mature plants. Resembling large stainless steel refrigerators, the chambers are sealed environments in which researchers can carefully control the light intensity, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide concentration.

Once the poppies were ready for opium harvesting, researchers used a razor blade to score the bulbous capsules at the base of each flower and collected the excretions for analysis. When a poppy is cut it excretes a white sticky substance similar to a rubber plant or milkweed. This substance is the opium gum, which can be dried and smoked or refined into pure morphine, codeine or other drugs.

 

[Jabberwocky]

So what there saying is that if I grow my poppies in some kind of apparatus that allows the poppies the requisite sunlight (or its equivalent) and bleed off some co2 into the apparatus, I'll get more potent poppies? Swell.

I wonder what amount of co2 (or ratio of co2 to air) would be beneficial vs harmful...

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

Good idea, just a shame it's be too expensive to implement on a large scale.

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

I’ve just reread this and realised that this experiment was done on Papaver setigerum (Dwarf breadseed poppy, Poppy of Troy) also sometimes referred to as a subspecies of Papaver somniferum (Opium Poppy, breadseed poppy) or a wild poppy, both of which are incorrect as “P. somniferum is diploid (n=11) and P. setigerum is tetraploid (n=22) with twice the number of chromosomes. So it cannot be considered the wild ancestral species of the opium poppy.”, not on Papaver somniferum!

The quote is taken from... Papaver sertigerum Wikipedia.

I know the way that Papaver somniferum chemically and genetically makes morphine has been deciphered but I’m not sure if this has been done for Papaver setigerum or if it’s even the same genetically* and or chemically.

I assume it’s genetically different as they’re not related to P. somniferum, though chemically it could be the same as it might be the easiest path way for nature/plants to take and evolution may have figure it out if it is that.

Either way they should have tried this with actual P. somniferum, not another species.