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Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum) cultivation

i can't help you with the varieties of papaver question, but i can tell you from experience that you are wrong regarding planting times - you should be planting them now.
you're in perth, am i right?
the optimum time to plant poppies is the 1st may, but you can still get away with it.
the later you plant them, the closer to the heat of summer your harvest time becomes, so the earlier the better in the australian climate.
i've had good results from supermarket seeds.
just remember to plant them in FULL sun and to water them regularly.
enjoy!
 
thanks for the reply mate! you just saved me goin through lot of effort and wasted time...

the super market seeds (am I aloud to say the brand name on BL????) sprouted a couple of days ago and there is literally hundreds that germinated, and their goin off :o8(=D

the downside it that the pots their in are way to small and I read that they dont like being transplanted 8o

so tomorro before I go to work, Im goin to bunnings, buyin a shit tonne of organic soil, makin a little loose garden bed 3.5 metres by 1 metre.... planting a nice row less condensed that whats in my pots and hopefully they will be done in 2 - 3 months?

Once again thanks for the reply.. would never had known otherwise and would have wasted a whole season 8o
 
Couple of things...In the US it is NOT legal to buy pods anywhere,let alone online.It is legal to buy seeds but not to plant them.

As for seeds,if they are unwashed and haven't been handled a lot you may find a scant residual coating of alkaloids but seeds don't contain alkaloids on their own.

Finally,on China and OTC medications,eveb codeine requires a prescription.You can buy more OTC in Australia than you can in China.In all of East Asia you will only find liberal OTC Regs in Cambodia and they are tightening those up so it may be past already.They passed a new stricter Rx Law last autumn but I haven't reviewed it yet,nor have I been there since it happened.

For dihydrocodeine,Japan has a tiny dosage in a combination medication available OTC,I think 7.5mgs per tab but it contains other,less desirable substances.
 
^^ thank you for that provided me with alot of information about 'Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum) cultivation ' in Australia.. 8)

nah only kiddin, was some really interestin information but..
 
just be careful when transplanting.
treat it like a new born baby and try to reduce stress as much as possible.
let us know how you go though :)
 
at this stage in the season, you're almost better off planting more than trying to transplant existing seedlings. i've never seen a successful transplant...but you can't have too many poppies. you never know what can kill/stunt them. but by all means, give transplanting a go.
there is some really good info out there if you do the right research.
poppies.org is a good place to start :)
 
misk said:
just be careful when transplanting.
treat it like a new born baby and try to reduce stress as much as possible.
let us know how you go though :)
Click to expand...

Will do mate, ill keep you updated as the garden progresses..

spacejunk said:
at this stage in the season, you're almost better off planting more than trying to transplant existing seedlings. i've never seen a successful transplant...but you can't have too many poppies. you never know what can kill/stunt them. but by all means, give transplanting a go.
there is some really good info out there if you do the right research.
poppies.org is a good place to start :)
Click to expand...

Im just about to leave to go to bunnings and get what I need to have a nice little garden bed and as soon as Im back, ill be planting this seasons 'crop'..

dont think ill bother with the transplanting... ill just kill whats sprouted in my pots, in the most humane way I can think of lol

once again, thanks for all the info....

EDIT: Just got back from the shops.. got 100 liters of organic soil.. made my nice little garden bed (bout 2 metres by 0.75 metres) and have sowed ma seeds.. hope this supermarket variety (brand name, 'spencers'.. which come from Aus. possibly tassie?) contains high levels of morphinane alkaloids 8)

now we play the waitin game ;)
 
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sooo, a bunch of shit cunt snails ate half my poppies! :X:X:o:! karma's a bitch but, they all 'died' (possibly ODed, lol) very shortly after eatin the leaves haha.. there was a fair few of them aswell..

can anyone give me a rough idea how much raw opium one would get from say, a dozen mature poppies?? fuck these things grow slowly :\
 
^ haha probably did...

its funny because there is litterally half a dozen dead snails practically touching 8 of what were my biggest and healthiest poppies :p :p

cunts... they got what they deserved :X
 
Pisspotnrock:

Snails are very attracted to poppies. A protective ring of snail bait around the area poppies are growing is essential, particularly while they're still small. It isn't too late to sow again. Last year saw poppies which were sown at this time grow very nicely and reach full size with flowers in late November/early December.

They are more heat tolerant than I originally believed. They do not like extended periods (say a few days running) of 30 degrees or over, but I've seen mid-sized plants do fine with a 33 degree day followed by a 30 degree day. That's more than I used to think they could handle.

It's impossible to say how much raw opium one could get from a dozen plants, because... well, nature is unpredictable. Some pods put out next to no latex, while others blast it like a dairy farm. However, as a very rough guide to give you an idea: I've seen a gram and a half come out of ten full grown, healthy plants. This is raw latex which was scraped off the pods, not extracted pod material.

Hope that helps. And I empathise with your snail experience. It's so disappointing to see the plants you've been watching and tending to disappear overnight. I can't help imagining a bunch of snails back in their den, listening to Lou Reed and nodding out...
 
^^ cheers for that information :) really appreciate it.

I've placed snail bait around whats left of them.. Ill post a photo when they become photo worthy lol
 
Good advice Halif. I used beer traps last year and they did the job, but were pretty messy.

My biggest problem is weeds. Cooch grass has got to be the worst...can't believe my neighbour purposely seeded it in his backyard :! I pulled out a bunch last weekend and left the decapitated 'runners' sitting in a pile...yesterday went to check my garden and the tiny bits of the runners are alive and trying to tunnel away. Those stinging nettles are relentless as well.

Here's a motivator for you pisspot -
IMG_0037.JPG


From last year. Your little plants will start exploding with growth in the next month or so I bet ;)

Got a different spot this year but the plants aren't as large. They're pretty damn healthy though and no signs of rot/mold. *cross fingers*
 
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^^^^^^ Nice!

I have a few questions. Some of the plants i've seen around town have a reddish tinge on the tips of the leaves. Is this some kind of nutrient deficiency or lack of water? These plants generally have a yellower appearence than some other plants and generally are a bit weedier and thinner than the rest also. How do these plants respond to some blood and bone? I understand it helps with flowering so it can't be bad.

It's interesting seeing how they respond to different soil types.

cheers
 
yawning man said:
^^^^^^ Nice!

I have a few questions. Some of the plants i've seen around town have a reddish tinge on the tips of the leaves. Is this some kind of nutrient deficiency or lack of water? These plants generally have a yellower appearence than some other plants and generally are a bit weedier and thinner than the rest also. How do these plants respond to some blood and bone? I understand it helps with flowering so it can't be bad.

It's interesting seeing how they respond to different soil types.

cheers
Click to expand...

Yeah it is interesting to see how they do in different soils :) I've been pretty surprised that all of mine have done well in sandy soil...just have to make sure I watered often as it drains heaps quick and they can dry out. Added heaps of compost and grass clippings to my raised garden beds earlier in the year and my plants seem more healthy and strong overall.

I'm no expert but pretty sure reddish/yellow tips are over fertilization. My first time I didn't bother with any ferts, and I'm debating if I should this year or not. The crop I got without fertilizers I was more than happy with but I think poppies are 'heavy feeders' and suck lots of the nutrients out of the soil - so if you do a couple crops in a row the soil can become depleted.

Read a fair few reports of people using blood and bone religiously and they seem to get some great results. I think it's better to use it a few months prior to planting though...might be better to avoid using it for now if your plants look healthy, wouldn't want your hard work to go to waste.

Here's a thread with someone asking about adding organic ferts later in the season if you wanted to give it a go -
http://forum.poppies.org/index.php?showtopic=16745&hl=

and

http://forum.poppies.org/index.php?showtopic=19089&hl

That poppies.org forum is pretty damn good for info.

Jealous of this guys garden -

IMGP0301.JPG

IMGP9902.JPG

from this grow log - http://forum.poppies.org/index.php?showtopic=19308

Not sure what the general yellow colouring is you mentioned but could be over fertilization. If it were my plants I'd probably try 'flushing' the soil by watering fairly heavily for about a week, just as long as the soil was draining good and the plants wern't getting waterlogged.

I'm pretty obsessed with gardening now lol...growing poppies got me into it. Still a beginner but got a cheap greenhouse thing for $20 with tomatoes and a bunch of different chilli seedlings atm. Herbs are heaps easy to grow and been so useful when I cook.
 
Yawning Man: if you're going to use blood and bone, use it sparingly. Poppies can generally pull what nutrients they need out of the ground unless, as Christ! said, they are in particularly deficient soil (which may be the case if you grow them in the same place season after season). Fertilizing too much can do counter-productive things to poppies; large plants are not necessarily the 'strongest'. Sometimes ferts can cause the plant to go into overdrive and over-extend itself, producing many small and 'weak' pods, or producing more buds than it can sustain (resulting in a few small pods and many unfinished buds which simply dry up without opening). Sometimes less is more:)

What concerns me is the mention of reddening of the leaf tips. I've seen it, too, this season being the first time.

In fact, whatever "it" is, it has effectively destroyed many plants by causing them to stunt. Initially the plants change from green to brownish to red, and then development slows to a crawl. They don't seem to die, rather they go into stasis and don't recover. It is extremely vexing as I can't see any common factor in this affliction - one batch gets it and another doesn't. Potted plants seem much more likely to get it, and plants in moist conditions also seem to be at higher risk. These are just my observations, however. Although I guess it is a disease spread by insects, I don't really know. There is a disease which afflicts carrots in this way (reddening and stunting).

I would really love to know what causes it, and what measures (if any) can be taken to avoid it.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone. Halif, interesting over fertilisation can be counter productive. It does make sense though. I have noticed that the reddening plants are predominately in pots, but then there are a few in pots that are going insane and looking very healthy. I'm fairly sure the soil is different in those pots though. So it could possibly be a disease of the roots and how the soil affects them?
Sucks that half of them might end up scrawny and small. But i'm still seeing new seedlings popping up every couple of days. How do the springlings go in your experience?

I remember in one spot blood and bone was used a year ago in the last season, so I don't think it would matter if i used it or not. And they're pretty much going great as it is so I don't wanna risk anything.

Christ! that garden is amazing. That'd easily set me up for the year!!
 
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