The opium poppy (Papaver somniferumor sleep-bringing poppy), as the name implies, is harvested for its opium and all of its refined opiates such as morphine, thebaine, codeine, papaverine, and noscapine. Use of the opium poppy predates written history. Images of opium poppies have been found in ancient sumerian artifacts . Ancient Greeks also knew of the properties of the opium plant, from which it gained its modern name of opium. The Greeks used this plant in the treatments of asthma, bad eye sight, and stomach problems.
What is the correlation between growth and development to morphine content in the opium poppy? An article in the 'Botanical Gazette' set out with a detailed experiment to discover just that (entitled "Studies on the Growth and Development and Morphine Content of Opium Poppy"). By growing one population under usual greenhouse conditions, and another under strictly controlled temperatures and photoperiods.
according to the article, the lants produced maximum growth and concentration of morphine when exposed to a day temperature of about 15 to 20°F higher than the night temperature. This allowed the opium plant to photosynthesize and respire during the optimum daytime temperature, and to rein in the rate of respiration during a cooler night. High temperatures cause increased respiration, sometimes above the rate of photosynthesis. To High a temperatures would then obviously lead to minmal growth and production of morphine.
