One of the State's major agricultural export earners, an average of 1,000 Tasmanian farmers are contracted to grow poppies. The area of land under poppy cultivation has now grown to more than 13,000 hectares.
Poppies are grown in a three-year crop rotation cycle. Because the crop should not be grown in the same field in consecutive seasons, poppies are ideally suited to mixed crop and livestock farming enterprises.
Field officers employed by the two poppy processing companies are responsible for the agronomic management of the crop including arranging contracts, sowing, spraying and harvesting.
Sowing is from early winter to spring, flowering in early summer and harvesting in mid to late summer (December to March). Biologically mature plants are harvested when the seed capsules, which appear after flowering, are dry.
Large mechanical harvesters are used, employing a minimum number of people, all of whom have security clearances. The small amount of poppy stubble remaining in fields after harvest is destroyed as part of Tasmanian Government licensing controls.
Additionally, information about poppy production is available from the Department of Primary Industries and Water (Tasmania)
