reason purple marijuana strains have become extremely popular in the last ten years.
From Purple Kush to Granddaddy Purps to Cherry Pie, purps marijuana is luscious to inhale and look at.
In this first article of a two-part series on purple marijuana, we’ll look at what makes purple marijuana different, and why marijuana turns purple.
Hint: it’s not because of temperatures, nitrogen, or hitting your plants with a stick.
We’re also going to talk about purple marijuana as medical marijuana. Because that special purple color comes from compounds known to have medical benefits.
In our follow-up part two article coming soon, we’ll line out the strongest, rarest, and most sought-after purple marijuana strains, and look at ways to maximize the value and potency of your purple marijuana.
So here’s the inside story on beautiful marijuana purps…
People used to believe marijuana is triggered to turn purple solely for the same type of reason that trees’ leaves change color in autumn.
This involves temperature getting colder, less sunlight, decreased and degraded chlorophyll, and the presence of “anthocyanin” pigments that give marijuana purple, burgundy, and reddish tones.
Some in the marijuana growing community believe that environmental conditions (usually influenced by time of year or indoor garden light cycles, cooler nights, stress, and nutritional factors) automatically produce purple marijuana, regardless of the cannabis genetics involved.
This theory says that almost any strain of marijuana will go purple if night temperatures get cold enough, if you deprive the plants of nitrogen, and for other alleged reasons.
I believed those theories too, and tried to induce purpling by having low dark-cycle temperatures, by manipulating nutrition, by letting my hydroponics plants go way past late bloom, etc.
Don’t get me wrong—sometimes my cannabis plants’ leaves or bud hairs did go purple, but it seemed to me it wasn’t my techniques making it happen.
Then I started growing purple marijuana strains. Not just trying to make any marijuana go purple, but getting seeds for Grand Daddy Purp and other purple strains.
I had abandoned the idea that giving plants harsh conditions (such as night temperatures at 57 degrees Fahrenheit) would create purpling in any marijuana strain.
I maintained optimum grow room and hydroponics nutrients protocols and followed the recommended bloom phase lengths for purple strains I grew.
Like magic, in controlled grow room conditions, these purple strains turned purple or maroon when they wanted to, kind of like the way that autoflowering marijuana flowers when it wants to.
Note that some purple strains, like all marijuana strains grown from seed, may express different phenotypes.
Not every marijuana plant grown from seeds of a purple strain will go purple: you could buy ten cannabis seeds that are said to be a purple strain, grow them out, and find that some go purple all the way, others only show a little purple, and some don’t go purple at all.
Beautiful Querkle purple marijuana from TGA Seeds
My experience is if you have actual purple marijuana strains genetically set up to go purple, most seed-grown individual plants from that strain will go purple in optimum grow room conditions.
You might find other purple cannabis strains that go purple only in sub-optimum conditions (such as unusually cold nights). But the vast majority of cannabis strains won’t go purple at all.
Remember also that purple stems or leaves can be a sign of nutrients deficiency involving phosphorus, potassium, or copper.
If you’re growing a non-purple strain and you see purple stems, purple leaf veins, or purple stalks, fix your nutrients program and root zone pH.
In part two of this article topic, I’ll line out the most reliable and tasty purple strains that produce large harvests of very strong purple bud.
But one thing I’ve asked myself is, why are purple strains so popular? Is it just because they’re really pretty, or that some purple strains taste like berries or grapes?
In my research, I discovered that purple cannabis strains have a high percentage of Indica genetics, and they contain anthocyanins.
Anthocyanins are said to have medical effects. You find them in healthy foods like berries and purple cabbage.
These compounds are said to be anti-oxidants, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cholesterol.
However, nobody is yet sure if anthocyanin medical benefits transfer to you if you combust or vape purple marijuana.
It could be that only by extracting purple cannabis into oils or butter and ingesting it as medibles, topicals, or tinctures will you get the full medical benefits of anthocyanins.
In our next article on purple marijuana, you’ll get a list of the best and most valuable purple marijuana strains, and good info on how to grow them for maximum purpling, potency, and harvest weight.
