Research underway at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) aims to boost productivity for opium poppy growers by developing new strategies to control weed poppies.
It is important research for an industry that supplies almost half of the world’s licit alkaloid material for the pharmaceuticals industry.
The research is led by TIA Senior Research Fellow Dr Jason Scott who is highly regarded for his research to support the poppy industry.
“The management of poppy weed species is a challenge for the industry. Weeds including Rough Poppy, Long-headed poppy and Corn poppy compete for resources in the field and contaminate harvests. Due to their close relatedness to opium poppy, control of these weeds represents a significant difficulty for the industry,” Dr Scott said.
Earlier this year, Dr Scott received a grant from the Tasmanian Government’s Agricultural Development Fund for a three-year project to address the control of weed poppies in opium poppy production. It was part of a $2 million dollar announcement of five agricultural research, development and extension projects to be led by TIA.
The project is a collaboration with Extratas Bioscience, SunPharma and Poppy Growers Tasmania.
“This new research project will have practical outcomes for poppy growers who are battling to control weed poppies. At the conclusion of this project, we will provide poppy growers with two recommended strategies to effectively manage weed poppies and reduce the impact on production,” Dr Scott said.
“Currently, growers have limited control options for weed poppies and herbicides are not doing the job. We want to provide growers with tried and tested methods to give them increased confidence in controlling these weeds."
The first focus of the research project is to identify effective chemical herbicides for in-season control. Trial sites have been established within commercial opium poppy crops at Sassafras, Deloraine, Hagley and Red Hills.
“Growers are limited in their ability to manage weed poppies with herbicides due to the similarities between opium poppy and weed varieties,” Dr Scott said.
“We will evaluate currently available herbicides against both opium poppy and weed poppy species under different growth stages and conditions. From this trial, we will be able to provide growers with recommendations about the most effective treatment options,” Dr Scott said.
The second part of the research project will focus on developing a new method of weed control that can be applied between seasons. A protocol for false seed bed preparation will be a major outcome of this project and will be shared with growers.
Trials will commence early 2024 utilising greenhouses, growth chambers, and research plots at TIA’s Forthside Research Facility.
“We want to identify how the weed seed can be triggered into germinating in the absence of the crop. This will allow weed seedlings to be eliminated without any risk of damaging the crop and will minimise soil contamination for subsequent crops,” Dr Scott said.
“We know that weed seed has a latent period where it is dormant. We want to identify how we can break this dormancy to germinate the seed early and destroy it.
Poppy Growers Tasmania Chief Executive, Howard Nichol, said this research is vitally important for growers.
“Weed poppy production is increasingly impacted by poppy weed species which provide competition for resources and contaminate harvests. Heavily infested areas cannot be harvested which can significantly reduce growers production and hence profitability,” Mr Nichol said.
“This research project is another great example of poppy growers and processors, Government and TIA working collaboratively to enhance productivity, sustainability and importantly profitability within the poppy industry."
Learn more about the project 'Control of weed poppies in commercial poppy production'.