...Papaver Somniferum(The Opium Poppy) Growing...

[Clyde]

Good info... so, we can't be sure of the offspring even if the parents are very potent?

What's the deal with different strains like Danish flags and hens and chicks, etc. ? I've always thought there were some strains more desirable than others for getting opium from. Is that just because of their physical characteristics? For example, some strains haver bigger or more numerous pods? This is interesting stuff - seems poppies are very different from cannabis, which is more predictable when breeding for potency.

 

[surffreak23]

The offspring will likely look similar but not carry the potency necessarily, but they could also be way more potent than the parent...
Cannabis is far and away the winner of easy breeding compared to the poppy.... The different poppy strains have been isolated , like you guessed for their physical characteristics and opium production. The best opium poppies are ones that only put out 2-4 pods per plant, and is based mostly on the amount of latex it can produce and not the potency... Some varieties seem to produce more codeine than morphine and are valued differently at the pharmaceutical level. There is no predicting how potent your crop will be even if you had an automated system to grow them... Also if you grow more than one kind, all your seed will be cross pollinated and there is no way of telling how it will change the appearance and content, but it will still be viable seed for opium pods...

 

[Clyde]

So...chuck it and chance it...

Just thinking.... I got 250 seeds in my pack and it seemed like nothing - they're so small - and yet when I planted them I got half a garden full of poppy plants. Looking at my biggest pods - they've got to have like two thousand seeds in each one!!

 

[surffreak23]

Yup and they should all be viable... That's why I was saying to only save a couple pods for seed (maybe like 10,000 seeds)... LOL If you take those and spread them around your area you'll never have to grow on your property again!

 

[Clyde]

Yup and they should all be viable... That's why I was saying to only save a couple pods for seed (maybe like 10,000 seeds)... LOL If you take those and spread them around your area you'll never have to grow on your property again!

That's an attractive notion, isn't it? When I first became aware that opium poppies grew in the UK, the guy that turned me on to the fact taught me to look around the gardens of derelict houses, on waste ground, etc. and especially in areas with older houses - like 100 years old or more. He told me that P. somniferum was a popular garden plant in Victorian times and they seeded themselves and sometimes sort of naturalised in those kind of areas. And for a few years, that's how I found my poppies. Maybe I'll try casting a few seeds around discreetly. There are some public tracks on old railway lines near us. Lots of disturbed ground there and the plants that go with it - willowherb and coltsfoot and the like. A few poppies might be nice amongst them.

I'm now considering making some tar a la Smashed. I do like the idea of having it now and still having some pods for tea later as planned.

I've travelled around India quite extensively, and I've eaten poppy seed there a few times. They're quite popular as food. One time I had fried white poppyseed paste - it was a bit like peanut butter or tahina. Absolutely delicious, but I don't know if it had much of an effect because I was usually mildly high on something or other most of the time, but I'll investigate again with my seeds. Even if I don't get a buzz, there's all those beneficial micro elements to consider : )

 

[surffreak23]

I think sucking on the pods earlier today was what really gave me the buzz before I smoked any, just scraped em and sucked on em until they weren't bitter any more... The seeds maybe maintained that buzz until I smoked... either way they were yummy!

 

[Clyde]

There's a T-shirt slogan right there: 'Pod Sucker'. I'm going to go suck some pods. Wonder what the neighbours would make of that?

Surffreak, when you smoke lanced opium with hash oil, can you just mix it together and put it in a joint or do you have to vape it? I'd love to try this. I always believed a flame would ruin the opium and it had to be evaporated off a pipe or auminium foil. Is that right.

 

[surffreak23]

Not necessarily but vapping is more efficient... When I smoked the lanced opium and hash oil it was sitting on top of a pile of hash with the hash oil next to it on a screen in my bong. The first hit or two is just to fully melt everything together, then I just tap the blob with a lighter until it bubbles consistently but has no coal, rarely do I leave the lighter on the hash oil anyway... Putting all my oil on a pile of hash as a screen, nothing is lost and the oils etc. just saturate the hash and it lasts forever! The opium burns away quicker than the oil though... 1-2 hits for a little ball half the size of a pea...

This is from the six plants I extracted yesterday, 8.5 grams of tar! Not bad, not great...

 

[surffreak23]

BTW joint is a bad idea as it tends to burn weird and clog...

 

[Clyde]

The rain doesn't want to stop here. It's been pissing down for days and my plants are getting flattened. My tobacco has started rotting at the bottom leaves - gonna have to sort that tomorrow.

I cut down some of the biggest and ripest looking pods today - about six or seven, I think. I left them with a good bit of stem on and put them head down in an open brown paper bag to dry off (dried them with a towel first!).

The bits of plant that were left from each pod (they are all single pod plants) plus three really small weedy pods, I chopped up quite finely and then mashed. I don't have a food processor - I love cooking, but I'm into this kind of Buddhist thing which means I get off on the experiences involved in hand preparing everything (basically, it takes longer but it's a more scenic route). Anyway, I digress.... I put all the chopped stuff in an iron sauce pan and smashed the fuck out of it with this big wooden masher I got from my relatives from Siberia. I added some water and smashed some more then strained it through my coffee press. The result was a lovely bright green juice, which I'd planned to reduce to a tar as a test for a bigger operation. But I drank it instead.

So, I'm sitting here with a nice buzz on, which means my poppies work. But it could be a little stronger so I'm wondering if all the good stuff went up the tubes into the pods, or if my variety is just not that potent. Maybe my buzz is just off the small pods I had and there was nothing in the stems and leaves?

Anyway.... it works, And that's good.