Eco-friendly Management of Downy Mildew of Opium Poppy

Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) of the family Papaveraceae is a strategic crop for the pharmaceutical industry because it is the only source of morphine, codeine, and thebaine alkaloid drugs. Among the various alkaloids Morphine is a preferred analgesic for cancer patients and codeine is a cough depressant (Kapoor, 1995). Opium poppy is cultivated in different parts of the world such as Tasmania, Afghanistan, Egypt, India and Pakistan for the production of pharmaceutically important alkaloids including morphine, codeine, thebaine and papaverine. These alkaloids are frequently used as an analgesic, anti-tussive and anti-spasmodic in modern medicine. Morphine is given as in form of injection during high pain and Morphine pat is used to cancer patients. Morphine is the major International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 8 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com