Opium poppies aren’t native to Canada. It takes special soil and fertilizer to grow them in the Canadian climate.

That’s why an early summer discovery of a farmer’s field in northeast Edmonton, filled with 60,000 growing poppy plants, was very surprising. Police estimated the value of the plants to be between $160,000 and $500,000.

The Edmonton Drug and Gang Enforcement (EDGE) section executed a search warrant on July 4 on a property near 34 Street and 195 Avenue NW, and also found doda powder, which is commonly used to make a narcotic tea.

Four men were charged.

Insp. Darrin Gordon of the Edmonton Police Service’s Organized Crime Branch said poppies like this are “not typically seen in our country,” and that the last time authorities found an opium crop like this was in 2010 in Chill

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