Opium Poppy growing questions

[clearly]

hi all, first-time poster here, and I'm hoping I can 1) share my poppy experiments, and 2) get answers to questions that crop up during my early growing!

So I've decided that opium is the most pleasant thing I've ever smoked and since it's not readily available in my area, it's time to see if I can get some plants to grow. This is an indoor endeavour, since I'm living in an apartment with no outdoor grow space.

Questions I have so far:

1) is there any reason not to force flowering w/ light control before the plants get very tall? I think I'd prefer to grow shorties, maybe 1-2 feet tall and then flower them. Can this work? Since I've got shelves in my closet, ~0.4m tall, could i get a bunch of mini poppies going on each one? Or would this kill my pod-sap size & yield?

2) can I sow more than 1-2 seeds into a jiffy pot (little peat ball) at a time? The seeds I got from the grocery store seemed to germinate well in a paper towel, but now in-pot only 1/6 is poking through the dirt after ~10 days.

3) should I be sowing seeds right on the surface or a little bit underneath the soil? I put my first batch here ~1-1.5cm deep.

4) I just got a 70-watt HPS light, which I think should be sufficient for 5-7 plants in my 1-2 sq.m. closet. However it keeps cycling on and off -- I've calculated it's only on about 40% of the time. Does anyone know why new fixtures do this? the power supply should be fine so maybe the bulb is just getting too hot in such a small space? If this is the case, are there any suggestions of super-quiet cooling other than a little fan? I've got a ceiling fan in the room and figure that's sufficient for CO2 circulation, but won't cool the immediate area of the lamp...


Ok any help with these questions will be much appreciated! As my growing progresses, I'll post updates & pictures & more detailed methods!

[jmtx]

1 yes, switch to blooming fertilizer, use ur hps, and go 12/12 on and off
2 i wouldnt, id stick with 2 or maybe 3 at most depending on how ur germination rates are
3 id barely put them under the soil
4 if ur using an hps, theres gonna be no way to keep them small, the red really seems to stretch the stems alot, but are wonderfull for flowering, id recommend to get a cheap 2 bulb fluorescent light fixture, cost no more then $20
at some big stores, make sure u get 6500k bulbs, and use it to germinate and grow untill they are bout foot tall, then switch to ur hps, keep the flouro bout 2 inches from the tops

[Foster]

Just my opinion, but if your growin for smokable O. Your wasting your time. It takes several plants just to get a small taste of smoke. If your harvesting for O, you need a large outdoor plot. Do you really want to run a HPS for 3 months for one or two nights worth of smoke?

Also, poppies need long days to initiate flowering. They do not use phytochrome as a stimuli, like other smokables

Check out glev's thread here on indoor cultivation.http://forums.mycotopia.net/botanica...-grow-log.html (Hydroponic poppies grow log)

Also see http://forums.mycotopia.net/botanica...-poppies.htmlA (indoor poppies) cycling hps is probably a bad bulb fme.

[anti-oedipus]

never actually tried to grow the seeds but i occasionally make a wash with about 1/2 kilo of seeds (although it doesn't quite take me to coleridge's pleasure dome it certainly puts me in a beautiful dream-like state), and when i discard the washed seeds in the backyard dozens of 'em germinate. i've never bothered to grow them to maturity; partly coz i'm lazy and partly coz, as Foster points out, i believe you need a hell of a lot of mature plants to get a decent quantity of resin.

[Dyers_Eve]

new guy here...I've got a nice little outdoor garden going and so far it's been a total loss not a single drop of late on any of the four pods i've scored. I've got a miz of store bought MCormick, "Florist" Poppy, and 10 mixed varieties including, taz, mammoths,Lilac, India, Giganteum,Persian...etc... The varieties I planted last started budding before the MCormicks. We've had some really HOT temperatures of the high 90's and a few weeks of 113 nearly killed them.
They flop over if I don't at least mist them twice a day. I waited till the petals fell off and the crowns turned up and got nothing but seed.

I've got a little confusion about some of mine like the Giganteum having hairy stems.
They're so beautiful with the big white petals with the purple middles. Some of mine went straigh to seed when the pods dried out. I'll go out in the evening and snip the pods off the stem. I've tried different depths of scoring from just scratching the surface to deeper cuts and nothing...not even a drop of milk.
Maybe I'm waiting too long??? I usually give it a few weeks from the time the petals fall off. Maybe someone in these forums can "enlighten" me to what I may be doing wrong.

On another note for those who might be interested in smokable O I had the thought of rubbing a cigarette on the wet latex and letting the cig dry and then smoking it Makes me wonder if that would work.

[wickedest]

contact a few hydroponic grow shops & look for a product call Dr. Nodes

Dr . Nodes is your indoor garden’s # 1 prescription! Dr. Nodes has been formulated by a team of leading experts in the indoor gardening industry. This product was designed specifically to shorten internodes, stop vertical growth, increases lateral growth and produce larger, more rigid flowers. This product is EPA registered for use on ornamental plants (i.e. bedding plants, flowering/foliage plants, woody plants or bulb crops). Use Dr. Nodes when plants have reached desired height. A few applications will provide immediate results. Cutting edge plant nutrition available exclusively from NGW. Retailers: Fantastic for managing plant height in your showroom, no more unruly plants; displays last much longer.

http://www.77hydrostore.com/nut339.html check out the product at this link the price is BS on this site shop around

[twoguysupnorth]

that is wierd dyer. i had the same hairy stem ? about my hens and chicks. they werent bought but traded so i think mine were cross pollinated since only one pod has 1 chick,lol. the cigarette sounds like a good idea. i had decided to not scratch mine since when i did they definately bleed white but it was such a small amount that i licked it right off the pod. i couldnt really grow enough for any quantity of O.

[wolfbytez]

Just a quick note, to "fast track" just about any seed just pop your growing medium on a heating pad turned on low. Check often as smaller pots or peat/jiffy pots dry out faster with this method.

When you transplant into larger pots use some of those "aqua crystals" soaked in your fav growing brew and put it halfway down the pot and cover with soil...the roots will hit it & get a boost and less watering required.

[magickman152]

Dyers_eve, this is gonna be like losing a kid that you loved and watched grow up, but you can't use McCorrmic seeds to grow opium poppies. They have been synthetically altered and do not produce opium for the many wonderous people such us us that had them readily available to grow. It's basically the same procedure that gives consumers seedless fruits and the sort, but instead of making a hybrid seed that yields no seeds, the genetic key that allows the plant to produce opium is removed.
A good solution to this problem is buying your seeds from a "whole foods" or a local market that sells mainly all organic and natural foods. Most normal grocery stores only carry the synthetic/hybrid seeds. A primarily organic only store or health food store stays away from tampered with foods and seeds.
I made the same mistake once, and had to start growing from square one. That's the worst feeling in the world but once the new little sprouts come popping up you'll forget all about it and startnpampering the new babies.