Spice Seeds, answers, opinions, guesses? Options

[poppI]

I have read the archives and recent posts. Some say that spice seeds are a byproduct of the pharmaceutical industry, others say that they are a poor producing strain cultivated primarily for seeds. Can anyone take a stab, a guess or at least give an educated opinion as to what would come out of the ground if spice seeds were planted? If one lived in zone 9, they would almost be out of time to plant a better variety.

My friend is losing hope for his seeds from a dried pod. It's been 2 weeks and he still sees nothin. The spice rack seeds that he planted are his last hope. Waste of time, water and ground space?

By the way I'm new. I've been on for about a week. thanks to all those who have replied to my previous posts.

[Sweety Pie]

It's a toss up. Some come from pharmaceutical plants & some are specially produced for a low morphine content. I'd say plant them. The worst thing that could happen is you'll be disappointed.

[Daddy-O]

Zone 9 sucks

[fentanyl]

I've read many different things about this too, and a friend of mine managed to grow some from seed to pod (indoors) in 2 1/2 months w/ continual light. The flowers (white, pink dots) were extremely small, but I think it's because of the spacing and lighting. Later, when the petals fell off, an arrangement made w/20-or-so of the pods did not succeed in producing the effects hoped for. I suspect that either:
1.) Intensive lighting & poor spacing produces smaller pods & lower-yielding plants - size matters
2.) They were harvested about a week too soon (could this be THAT crucial?)
3.) McCormick seeds do indeed come from a VERY weak strain of PS.

So, to summarize, they were in fact drastically less potent, but this could be due to the fact that the plants she ended up with were only about 1/5 the size of the dried ones I get in the mail.

So what where does that leave us...lol I guess back at the beginning. But I thought I'd post since it may be of some use to you.

fentanyl

[georgiapoppy]

If your plants do well and mature properly, you should be fine. I've grown spice rack seeds many times and although some of the "named" varieties I've grown have been better, I was never disappointed with the spice rack varieities. They will do the trick.

The post that mentions the "weak McKormicks" were likely due to the fact that the plants had tiny pods and did not mature properly.

The Spice Island seeds have given me a strain of Taz poppy on several occaisions and I believe the McKormick are similar.

If your plants mature properly, you should be fine. I doubt any of the seed companies are going to bother paying for or producing a low morph variety of seed when it's perfectly legal for them to sell the "real deal" and the seeds are considered a waste by product of the pharmaceutical industry. Just not financially smart for them to use anything but the real thing until they are forced to do so for legal resaons. Think about it.

Good luck.

-gp

[beaker]

I recently read in an article, (of course I can't find it now!) that the country of Holland, is the furthest away from the equator as far as legal commercial growers go.
Growing poppy for the spice seed they produce, one of the drawbacks from being further away from the equator, is the realtive short growing season in which the sun is not strong enough to produce poppy with high alkaloid content.
Various strains play a major role in the characteristics of plants, such as plant height, bushiness, color and to some extent, alkaloid content. But the article refered more to the lack of full sun as the major culprit of low alkaloid content. Hopefully, I'll find the article and post it in the near future.

beaker

[Br@nd]

Every single time I've grown spice rack seeds,namely McCormick,all have been hi in Morphine content.I really don't think there is such a thing as a low Morphine poppy.

[beaker]

I think spice seed has gotten a bad rap. I was never able to find the article again about spice seed grown in Holland, but it said they produced low morphine poppy because the lack of sun, which makes since to me. I think any somni seed grown closer to equator (or any place that has alot of sunlight) will be higher in alkaloid content than that grown way up there in Holland. I haven't grown spice seed before, but a friend of mine is growing a batch for the first time, as an experiment. So hopefully, we'll find out soon. I know it grows nicely!

[Br@nd]

McCormick's are grown in Holland,and they are very potent!!!

[AMAPOLLO]

Swim always has good results with spice rack seed cultivation-results but hasnt been able to grow pod bought seed to pod stage.Swim knows one month old plants do have m content and enough will produce required effects.What a pain pod seeds dont do what spicerack seeds will do .Are the plants shredded completely or something with sap running everywhere ? Then maby seeds are gathered by filtering out somehow.Will frozen plants one month old have anything in them if tea is made from them?Talking about the large amount of leaf material.Thanks for any replies.

McCormick's are grown in Holland,and they are very potent!!!

mcormicks around southeast usa aint had any pst value for a year or more now.Maby times and sources have changed.Could be different story on growing from seed also.

[boodah]

I think spice seed has gotten a bad rap. I was never able to find the article again about spice seed grown in Holland, but it said they produced low morphine poppy because the lack of sun, which makes since to me. I think any somni seed grown closer to equator (or any place that has alot of sunlight) will be higher in alkaloid content than that grown way up there in Holland. I haven't grown spice seed before, but a friend of mine is growing a batch for the first time, as an experiment. So hopefully, we'll find out soon. I know it grows nicely!

I've had dutch poppies and may have read the same article as you too actually. From my personal experience, the dutch poppies were as good as any other variety I've tryed (I'm almost certain they were grown in zealand, holland too).
However, what that article I think you're talking about says is that turkish poppies produce on average 80mgs of opium per poppy (according to the article, turkish opium is the world standard), where as it said that dutch poppies produced only 20mgs. The morphine content was the same, just the dutch created less. That wasn't my experience, but it does make sense that the cooler climate creates lower morphine content poppies than turkey.

Anyway, I don't think that light can be a massive factor because the poppies I buy now are giants grown in central england. I'm not sure about this, but I think england is further away from the equator than holland or they're in a very similar position. I know we get similar weather anyway and these poppies are great and grow as big as any giants I've had before.

Try planting your spice rack seeds, like people have said, the worst outcome is they will just be pretty ornaments.
Last year was my first go at growing poppies and mine didn't germinate straight away either. I would just go out every 2 weeks and throw seeds around my garden until something germinated and it worked. This year I'm going to apply the same tactics in nearby fields and see what the outcome is.

This post has been edited by boodah: Jan 7 2010, 12:58 AM