Hybrid Vigor for Alkaloid Contents in Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum L.)

This study aimed to determine suitable opium poppy hybrids over mid parent, better parent and standart check levels in alkaloid ratios. In the study, 36 hybrids were evaluated derived from nine varieties. The experiment was carried out in four replications in randomized block design in 2016 and 2017. Heterosis over mid parent values ranged from -4.91% to 65.43% for morphine, -76.91% to 278.05% for thebaine, -68.97% to 180.91% for noscapine, -53.60% to 150.45% for codeine, -93.55% to 289.61% for oripavine and -78.69% to 285.94% for papaverine. In the result study of 34 crosses recorded positive heterosis over mid parent for morphine content followed by 24 for thebaine, 23 for noscapine, 26 for codeine, 22 for oripavine and 15 for papaverine.

Efficacy of weed control for opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) with a mixture of tembotrione and fluroxypyr

The study was carried out in the years 2013 and 2014 at the Łagiewniki farm to determine the effect of some herbicides on the yield and development of two opium poppy cultivars: ‘Lazur’ - with high morphine content, and ‘Borowski Biały’ - with low morphine content. The development and yield of the poppy was a derivative of environmental and agronomic conditions. The mixture of tembotrione and fluroxypyr applied post-emergence at a rate of 88 and 75 g a.i. · ha−1, respectively, effectively controlled most weeds which are harmful for the poppy and did not phytotoxically affect opium poppy plants. The level of yield also depended on the cultivar’s ability to grow under unfavourable weather conditions. A lower yield was noted for the cultivar with a lower content of morphine - ‘Borowski Biały’.

Split nitrogen doses and their efficiency in poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) nutrition

The efficiency of partial doses of nitrogen applied to poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) plants, cv. Opál, was followed in a pot experiment. The ammonium nitrate was applied either in a single dose at the beginning of growing season or in two split doses with the second application at the stage of flowering. With the increasing dose of nitrogen the number of capsules per a plant during the harvest and their volume increased irregularly. The separated application of an optimum dose of N (i.e.0.9 g N/pot) showed a statistically highly significant positive effect on the yield of poppy seeds compared to the same single dose of N made this figure increased by 25.6%. The morphine content in the capsules increased with the increasing supply of N from 0.85 to 1.01%. The term of nitrogen application influenced the number of capsules per a plant and their volume and morphine content irregularly.

Production of morphine and variability of significant characters of Papaver somniferum L.

Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) is currently an important agricultural commodity, with the product being used in the food industry (seed) as well as in the pharmaceutical industry (morphine and other alkaloids). Intensive production of poppy leads to a specific direction of breeding with the aim to obtain highly productive cultivars of the so-called food industry or industrial type. The paper evaluates 57 genetic resources (mostly cultivars), comparing the groups of values representing the indicators of production-significant morphologic and agricultural characters (capsule size; morphine content in poppy straw; weight of dry, empty capsule) and content of morphine in the poppy straw, in relation to the ideotype of poppy, which in these indicators represents 100% of the value. On average lower values in the above indicators were achieved by cultivars with white-coloured seed, including morphine content; concrete data are specified in three cultivars with morphine content in the poppy straw above 0.40%. In blue-seed to grey-seed cultivars, except for the high-morphine cultivar Buddha (1.85% of morphine), we found only six materials with a minimum morphine content of 0.8% in the poppy straw (maximum of 0.92%). These genetic resources also achieved very good values in the morphological indicator and average value in the economic indicator. The results will be used in the selection and classification of suitable genetic resources of poppy in breeding of industrial forms.

Alkaloid diversity in relation to breeding for specifi c alkaloids in opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.)

Papaver somniferum is a chief source of diverse physiologically active alkaloids, required by the pharmaceutical industry. The present study describes the diversity of the alkaloid spectrum of 122 opium poppy accessions of Indian origin by means of a cluster analysis based on Mahalanobis generalised distances. The accessions could be grouped into 11 clusters according to their relationship between the contents of morphine, codeine, thebaine, narcotine and papaverine in raw opium. The diversity of the alkaloid spectrum of 11 clusters reflected the very low correlations between the contents of the individual alkaloids across the 122 entries, found earlier. The clusters represented almost all possible combinations of the high content of an alkaloid with high or low content of another alkaloid. Although on average the morphine content exceeds the sum of the other four alkaloids, in one cluster the narcotine content (15.3%) was even higher than that of morphine (14.6%) and the content of the remaining alkaloids was also extremely high. The variation range among the clusters was for papaverine between 0.14% to 5.3%, while for morphine between 12.4% to 18.0%. The results indicate a large space for the breeding of opium poppy for individual alkaloids or particular combinations of alkaloids, as required by pharmaceutical industries.