Mike Lyle wrote:
Ann Heanes wrote:

GlacierHi
Can anyone tell me why a farmer would be growing a field of white
poppies? It was a lovely sight but what would the harvest be?
Annie


Well, at Reading U you're in the best possible place in the country
to get the answer! It sounds like an opium poppy: I doubt if it's
grown for pharmaceuticals in this country, so my guess is that it's
being grown for the seed, for food, oil, or the garden trade.
Poppy-seed oil is used in painting and cosmetics. The actual seed of
British-grown poppies doesn't, I understand, contain much morphine:
that needs a warmer climate.

I saw a news story last year where an English couple who'd retired to
Spain innocently grew a nice display of their favourite opium poppies in
their garden. Presumably the climate there *is* suitable for morphine
production because they got into some serious bother with the local
police - I dunno whether they were prosecuted in the end.