harvesting opium from pods

[Ramblingambler]

Do the pods need to stay on the plant alive when u scratch them to bleed? or can u cut them off and bring them inside to sit on a tray to bleed? does any one have any experiance? dosage? is it good stuff if grown from seed in just average soil? any help would be cool thanks.

[Shadowlord]

Certainly no expert, but I imagine they would have to remain alive to continue to produce the opium to collect. The farmers scratch them and go out and collect what has appeared and then come back again. If you cut the tops off they will still be good for brewing tea but they will not be producing anymore opium.
I'm sure someone here will be able to tell you far more than I about it though.

[cuts]

Yes, you'd have to leave the pod on the plant. Traditionally it is done by making angled slits on the pod (like 2 or so slits) and then coming back later to collect or scrape up the opium. After the slits are healed up you can do it more.

[llamabox]

Correct.
I score the pods early in the day and harvest the latex before the sun goes down. Yield is low, only a gram or so from my small plot.

[Oblivion]

When I score mine which is rare nowadays, I make about 6 vertical cuts. You can go back after harvesting your first cut and score again but the result is greatly diminished. It really is a great deal of work to harvest in this fashion.

[AdamBomb1985]

I was watching a documentary on opium farmers in Afghanistan and from what I saw the farmers had a tool with 5 blades a few millimeters apart. They would make an 1/8th in. cut in one place from about 1/2 in. near the top to 1/2 in. near the bottom while it was still cool out side. They would then collect the laytex in the evening and repeat the process by scoring the opposite side of each cut until the entire pod had been scored. They said an acre of poppies can produce 1 kilo of raw opium per day until the pods are used up.