Why are some purple or blue or other strains of marijuana not those colors?

[phantomcosmonaut]

Sometimes I've gotten great purple kush where you can see the purple on the buds, but mostly when I get a color name strain it is not its color (Note: these are medical grade). I have been told it has something to do with when it is harvested or something. Can anyone explain?

 

[MrSpeedyG]

Could be with the way it is grown. I'm by no means much of an expert on weed strains as down in my neck of the woods we only ever see the same standard green heavy indica strains, never come accross any sativa, well not for atleast 2 years.

Anyway back to the point, IIRC weed can be made purple if it is grown below a certain temp or something...

 

[justsayknow]

Cold temperatures or inherited genetics or a combination of both. There is a whole thread about it somewhere on here.

The chemical that does it in cannabis and in a lot of other plants is apparently Anthocyanin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin

 

[stayhealthy970]

I got a clone A few months ago called s blueberry An Now its turning A nice purple but I'm not sure what the S stands For?

 

[Laid2Rest]

Anth is the chemical in most plants to cause a purple tint to the ends of leaves. However with Cannabis its alittle different. Some high quality thc levels produce purple tinting the leaves but not much. Highly purple plants are usually due to shock from transplanting, or temperature drops or really anything to cause the plant to stunt. Purple doesn't always come with certain strains. Ive had purple kush that was so light green it hurt my eyes!

 

[Laid2Rest]

I got a clone A few months ago called s blueberry An Now its turning A nice purple but I'm not sure what the S stands For?

Maybe the s is part of the name? It could be "super" "sticky" "sativa" . My bet is "sour". Sour Blueberry is a common name ive heard. Could be anything.

Blue moon is my all-time favorite strain.I'll never pass the opportunity to medicate with that!

 

[Felonious Monk]

I got a clone A few months ago called s blueberry An Now its turning A nice purple but I'm not sure what the S stands For?

Was the s like (S) or S-Blueberry? That would indicate Sativa, though Blueberry is usually thought of as a Hybrid.

Blue moon is my all-time favorite strain.I'll never pass the opportunity to medicate with that!

Blue Moonshine I've had. Blueberry crossed with something.

 

[justsayknow]

Purple doesn't always come with certain strains.

Thats true but often they will carry the genes for it and sometimes half or even more of the seeds will express that trait. I've never grown the US/Canadian purple kush but I know seeds from the Pakistani (Chitral) one do. Also I'm not experienced with clones but my guess would be that they would be quite likely to exhibit the color of the original plant.

 

[Laid2Rest]

Ah just say know you are correct my friend. I should have worded it differently. Genes+clones= same traits throughout strains. Purple kush which is purple X green crack which is light green will carry the purple Gene with it while cross breeding. Though u can get a purple strain without purple. All in the dominating genes of the plant ofc

 

[Jibult]

Blue moon is my all-time favorite strain.

It should be a crime to give a strain the name of a beer brand.


It's piqued my interest, though. My most favoritest bud was sold as a Jack Herer X Blue Dot hybrid. Left me feeling opiated, man, I loved that weed.

 

[Laid2Rest]

It should be a crime to give a strain the name of a beer brand.


It's piqued my interest, though. My most favoritest bud was sold as a Jack Herer X Blue Dot hybrid. Left me feeling opiated, man, I loved that weed.

Agreed mate lol! Why mix those names in those world's?? But it's a hard strain to dupe. Ive taken a picture of every bud of BD ive gotten and compared. Spot on everytime!

 

[Artificial Emotion]

As justsayknow said, anthocyanin is the purple pigment responsible for the purple and blue hues in many plants. Red cabbages for example contain large amounts of anthocyanin. Here's an experiment to demonstrate a very interesting property of this chemical:

Break up a bunch of red cabbages and boil in water until the water is saturated with a purple-red colour. Drain this off into four glasses and to the first add, add lemon juice; to the second, add nothing (a control); to the third, add ammonia; and to the fourth, add laundry detergent.

You will have something that looks like this:

So, as you can see, anthocyanin is sensitive to a change in pH and is a very interesting pigment. I'm not saying changing the soil pH will change the colour. However doing things like reducing night time temps and holding back on phosphorous will bring out blue, purple and red colours in plants. Some strains are naturally blue or red regardless of these factors such as pakistan chitral kush and these are even prized for this trait alone.

 

[MrSpeedyG]

So do they transplant a cabbage onto a bud plant and it goes purple?

 

[AgeIsWisdom]

Around here, "purps" are considered to be better. This does not hold as much weight as it did before the medical movement but for those of us who remember "the old ways" a nice purple bud will really catch one's eye. I have always questioned whether or not the color was more to please the eye or if purple bud truly was "just that much better" like everyone said. I will say that many a different plant has come my way and I have never had a bad one that was purple. Had a lot of really good green, red, and even something called black diamond that was quite literally black, weirdest thing I've ever seen but I'd put it in my top 5 for sure.

That was a lot of words for a simple reply... I too have had many different kinds with colors in their name that weren't said color at all. I've even seen two different kinds named the same thing by two separate people who just didn't know the other existed. For the most part, you can tell what you have by the smell, appearance, density, taste, and sometimes the effect, providing you have had it before that is. As long as it isn't grass clippings, I never really cared anyways. Sometimes the color is just part of the name even.

 

[BuprenOrphan]

It has nothing to do with the way it's grown, sometimes it's just genetics. I've had seeds straight from Amsterdam like purple nurple for example or blue cheese straight from Big Bhudda himself, and when I grew it out it was just some super funky beautiful green nuggets. That doesn't mean that it's any less potent, and it's still the exact same bud, it just wasn't in their genes to turn colors on ya. An example of it being a product of how it is grown, would be a strain called The Black, from Paradise Seed Co.. It will turn a hazy dark purple, almost black color In the last 2 weeks of flowering. But if you like that more psychedelic, heady high rather than couch lock zombie style, you have to harvest before those last two weeks, before the trichomes go completely Amber. So you won't get black buds. But again, if you let it grow out for those last two weeks you will have some stunningly dark, beautiful bud. But even in THAT case, there are some seeds that won't turn color for
You in flowering. That's just the way nature is. Hope that helped a little bit

**EDIT**
After reading the whole thread, and seeing a lot of interesting opinions, I also saw that the question was answered more or less in the same manner as my answer, so apologies for the repeat. But yeah, if someone grows a purp strain and it turns purple, and decides to turn it into a mother plant rather than flower it out, or even just take cuttings, those cuts or
Clones will ALL turn purple. Because it is predetermined in the mothers genetics. This is what most perpetual growers do, they will buy a pack of seeds, grow them out an find the absolute best plants of the bunch, and keep them by cloning. I was a longtime member of RollitUp.org, and was a perpetual grower myself. I grew mainly OG Kush, Chemdawg, and Sour Diesel, but I also went through a huge variety of strains before deciding on what I would grow for
The long term. I would love to discuss perpetual growing with anybody who is knowledgeable on the subject and compare notes.. I was a Stinkbud method grower, and before that used the SOG method which is inefficient if ur limited on space...