The fields are check-measured with staff drawn from other states and districts. Those peasants growing more than the allowable are struck off the opium rolls for future production, and the excess poppy is pulled up, plowed under, and destroyed. In some years when excess opium cultivation has been discovered, officers and staff in the Opium Department have been either reprimanded, brought up on charges, or dismissed. Photo courtesy of the Central Bureau of Narcotics. Note the distance between the crop fields.
Most poppies have a white bloom, but one red appeared in the field.
A close-up of this blossom and field appears later. After the petals fall from the poppy, the pod, which is about the size of a golf ball, is lanced, and the opium latex is exuded. Poppies are lanced in the afternoonand the latex is scraped off the next morning. Peasants hope for calm, dry days during lancing season. Rain washes the latex off the pod, while friction of pods in the wind rubs the latex off .