🧑‍🌾 Gardening 🧑‍🌾 Growing opium poppy

[BlindHarper]

I've found a supplier of bulk Hungarian Blue poppy seeds. They're actually for eating, but they are viable seeds.

Now, from what I've seen, strains such as Black Peony and Lauren's Grape have considerably higher morphine content.

For example, Morphine content per 100g

Black Peony - 332
Lauren's Grape - 627
Hen and Chicken - 234
Hungarian Blue - 152

So far, I've already sowed some Black Peony, but I'm paying £3 per tiny sachet of 2500 seeds. In comparison, I can buy 100g of Hungarian Blue fr £4.

So, is it worth growing Hungarian Blue? Has anyone else done so, and how was it?

 

[Edward_Gibbon]

If you are super invested in improving your yield, I suspect environment has a much bigger influence on alkaloid production than strain. I would suggest you use a nitrogen based fertilizer and if you’re comfortable performing a serial distillation and have $200 lying around for glassware, you could recreate the results of this study.

Also take data on alkaloids from ornamental cultivars with a grain of salt, as far as I know only one study was performed comparing their alkaloid production, so don’t take it as gospel.