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Opioids Is this mold or not? Opium poppys

K

katarina123

Greenlighter
Joined
Aug 25, 2011
Messages
7
Planning on making tea from my recently harvested poppies, but there are some dark spots on them which concerns me. I've read a lot about how dangerous mold can be, so I just want to make sure.

Almost all pods, especially the large ones, has small brown/black spots on them. Looks similar to this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/Poppies-seeds-dry.png

Could that be mold? They are also somewhat 'frosty', but that's how they're supposed to be, right?
Cutted one open, and the inside looked just fine.

EDIT: just took some pictures, can anyone help me determine if this is mold or not?
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/64482017.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/73863175.jpg/
View them in full size.
 
Last edited:
Those are immature pods (still green), they will mould up in about a week unless you dry them pronto.

The dark spots are bruises or opium stains. The white haze over the pods is in fact single-celled life, but it's of the same of mould as the white haze on the outside of e.g. grapes or apples. It's more of a natural yeast combined with plant waxes than anything else and shouldn't be very harmful.

White "fuzz" (more than the haze on the outside of pods) or big black stains growing on or inside your poppy is mould.

Unfortunately this isn't a poppy cultivation board. I'll leave this open if anyone else wants to clarify but I warn you all - cultivation discussion is not permitted.
 
sekio said:
Those are immature pods (still green), they will mould up in about a week unless you dry them pronto.

The dark spots are bruises or opium stains. The white haze over the pods is in fact single-celled life, but it's of the same of mould as the white haze on the outside of e.g. grapes or apples. It's more of a natural yeast combined with plant waxes than anything else and shouldn't be very harmful.

White "fuzz" (more than the haze on the outside of pods) or big black stains growing on or inside your poppy is mould.

Unfortunately this isn't a poppy cultivation board. I'll leave this open if anyone else wants to clarify but I warn you all - cultivation discussion is not permitted.
Click to expand...

I dont want to discuss cultivation, just the post harvest issue.
Had to harvest them early, a couple of days ago. How do I dry them the best way?

The dark spots was my biggest concern. No dark spots or white fuzz inside the one I cutted up. Looked just fine.
The white stuff is on the outside is not 'hairy' at all, and does not go away when I touch it. Or, some of it does, but not all of it.

I'd like a second oppinion, anyone?
 
It's impossible, to the best of my knowledge, to get 'mature' dried poppy pods from 'immature' poppy heads.

The dark spots I have seen on many vars. of wild poppies, as far as I can tell it is bruising where the opium has hardened and oxidised.
 
No that isn't mould. Opium stains as has been stated. My pods did the same post harvest. I've seen them go mouldy, in this case, black, wooly, revolting looking fuzz all over the things.
 
Thank you for your answers.

But what about the white thing, that's still some kind of mould? :(
Shit...
 
The wite stuff/"haze" is a natural plant wax that sometimes harbours the moulds that do natural fermentation. It shouldn't contaminate your pods unless you start crushing them and leave them to ferment.
 
sekio said:
The wite stuff/"haze" is a natural plant wax that sometimes harbours the moulds that do natural fermentation. It shouldn't contaminate your pods unless you start crushing them and leave them to ferment.
Click to expand...

Okay, thank you. The pictures posted in my first post was about 3-4 days past the harvest.

I didn't want to cut up one of the bigger pods, so I took a smaller one; one that was very white (but not hairy-mould-white) on the outside. That one looked just perfect on the inside. The seeds fell off, and there was no hairy mould (mold?) on the inside.

So now, they're left to dry, hanging upside down, until they're dry. All ok?
Just tell if you need more pictures to determine. I freaked out from reading some stories about mould and poppys on this forum, shit. Turns out it can be really dangerous.

Side note, I will of course examine the inside of every pod before making tea of 'em.
 
Update: some poppys looks just fine, but a few of the smaller ones looked suspicious. They looked withered (?), so I cutted like three of them up to have a look at the inside. Immature seeds, and a bad smell. They went directly into the trash can.

But all the bigger ones looks good on the outside, as far as I'm concerned. They also smell just fine, and are dried out and hard. I can hear that the seeds are loose on the inside as well.
I will post some more pics for you experts to decide so you can tell me if this is drinkable or not without any mould diseases.
 
If there's no obvious mold, they'll be drinkable. Pull the tops off and shake the seeds out, preferably onto some unbaked bagels :D
 
sekio said:
If there's no obvious mold, they'll be drinkable. Pull the tops off and shake the seeds out, preferably onto some unbaked bagels :D
Click to expand...

Thanks!
All the bad pods are as said gone now.
But still, there is still this white cloudy shit on the outside. Not hairy, but goes away when I rub it. Will post pictures later.
 
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