Thanks Bill and Tristin.
It was a bit of difficult situation. It was actually a very small field, and partly unreachable because it was fenced and close to a construction site. (Bad weather was approaching rapidly so much time was not left)
The Poppy is a large flower and you need a larger DOF to get it fully sharp (which was the intention). That has penalties for the (small) background in terms of blur and unsharpness (bokeh).
Tried a few lenses (shot below is with the Angenieux 35-70/2.5 showing the small area) and made this one with the Nikkor 200/2.0 ED IF AI (I was lucky to purchase the lens at a very discounted price and sold the 80-200/2.8 to get it)