Buying dried pods by appearance?

[gunnaknow]

If SWIY had a choice of different dried pods, are there any physical characteristics that SWIY should look for when selecting pods? What about colour? Would it be better for SWIM to choose pods that are dark mauve, or have black blotches? Would this indicate good latex content? Or are pale, beige pods better because they have less latex with a higher proportion of morphine in the latex? Has SWIY compared the yield of cooked opium from pods with different colours before? Did the ones with mauve/black produce more cooked opium or a difference in opium potency? SWIM read of someone indicating that they had had better results when choosing dried pods that were small, not overly dry and dusky blue in colour. Thanks.

Gunna

[samuraigecko]

SWIMs pods when dry come out a grey green with a fair amount of purple in it. He does not know if this is any way an indicator as to the potency of it.

(check the "mauve madness" and the "botany and selective breeding" threads in this section on how potent they actually are)

SWIM has found that the size of the pod matters very little. SWIM has found the negative correlation rule to be correct though when bleeding actual latex from pods.

Negative correlated means that the higher the latex and ultimately alkaloidal production, the lower the morphine content by ratio. Therefor one can end up with a rather small to medium sized pod which produces a higher grade of opium than massive tennis ball sized pods (like the giganthenum, red giants, white giants etc etc). The best possible pods if SWIM had a choice and had none of his own pods to work with would be the Indian white (up to 20% morphine content), Burma white (up to 20% Morphine content), Tasmanian Purple (up to 30% morphine content).

Hope this has been of help.

[gunnaknow]

Thanks Samurai. What about if SWIM had a choice between pods grown in the UK/Netherlands or Turkey? Would the ones from Turkey, all other things being equal, have a higher opiate and morphine content because of the hotter climate? Which would SWIY choose? What if the ones from Turkey were 50% more expensive? Thanks.

[samuraigecko]

Originally Posted by gunnaknow

Thanks Samurai. What about if SWIM had a choice between pods grown in the UK/Netherlands or Turkey? Would the ones from Turkey, all other things being equal, have a higher opiate and morphine content because of the hotter climate? Which would SWIY choose? What if the ones from Turkey were 50% more expensive? Thanks.

One thinks that climate has absolutely nothing to do with potency. The most potent opium plants are grown in Tasmania after all, which is the most southern part of Australia and known for its coldness.

That said however, the Turkish is probably the way to go. It is a well known and well established strain with good potency.

Hope this has been of help

[gunnaknow]

SWIM thinks the ones from Turkey are Giganteum, not the Turkish White. With that said, do the ones from the UK/Netherlands sound like a better bet, given the fact that the ones from Turkey are 50% more expensive and only Giganteums? Thanks again.

[samuraigecko]

Giganthenums are just a strain (offshoot) of the turkish white anyway and are still of very descent potency. One has absolutly no idea of the potency of the other poppies because he knows nothing about which strains they are, if he knew a little more about the strains (names etc) then he could probably offer more advice on which one would hypothetically be the better strain.