Selection of Poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) Cultivars for Culinary Purposes

In European countries, parallel with the administrative regulations, a new strategy was worked out for cultivation of poppy (Papaver somniferum L.). The countries according to their traditions can be interested in pharmaceutical processing, culinary production, or growing plants of ornamental type. Especially the importance of cultivars accumulating low level of alkaloids in the capsule is increasing, because they are allowed to cultivate for culinary purposes without severe restriction and control. In this work our results are presented in creation of 'spring' and 'autumn sown' cultivars of low capsule alkaloid content. To develop spring-sown type cultivar of low alkaloid content, three poppy cultivars ('Orias Kek', 'Przemko', 'Libra') were crossed. After four years of consequent selfing and individual selection the best line under the name 'Ametiszt' was chosen for registration procedure. Its alkaloid content in the capsule is rather low, less than 0.1%. The cultivar was registered by the Hungarian authorities in 2003 and obtained EU patent afterwards in 2004. 30 different winter poppy populations of gene bank origin (Hungarian National Gene Bank, Tapioszele) were involved into the selection procedure to get 'autumn-sown' type cultivars of low capsule alkaloid content. As a result of 4 year long selection and selfing 2 families were chosen, where the individuals showed acceptable morphological and production-biological characteristics and their alkaloid content in the capsules was less than 2.0%. One line from each family was nominated for cultivar comparison test under the name of 'Leila' and 'Lilla', respectively. The official control has been started in 2006 under the aegis of the Hungarian National Agricultural Quality Control Institute.