Description
Image taken at number 14 camp gardens, Loveday internment group. VX137426 Driver (DVR) Percival James Torbet stands in part of the fifty-acre crop of opium poppies (Papaver Somniferum) sown in March 1943. DVR Torbet is five feet six inches tall and had driven his truck into one of the more sheltered areas to give a comparison of the seven-foot height the plants reach under ideal conditions. The crop flowered in October 1943 and was harvested in November the same year, but drought caused a low yield. By 1945, however, the annual harvest amounted to approximately thirty-five tons of poppy heads which made the Barmera area the principal source of poppy straw in Australia. This in turn enabled the Commonwealth to become independent of overseas sources of morphine and other opium derivatives.
Details
Photographer
Hedley Keith Cullen
Classification
Photograph
Physical Description
Colour: Black & white
Copyright
Copyright expired - public domain
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