Everybody loves and knows the beautiful purple color some cannabis plants can exhibit, but do you know why they do it?
Before breeding became popular, the only way to get purple buds was by growing cannabis in cold temperatures but nowadays you can find purple strains that develop not only purple but pink, red, and blue hues without doing anything special.
Modern plants have been selected to have an increased Anthyocianins production, which makes them show unique colors without doing anything special during their growth.
What are anthocyanins?
Anthocyanins are water-soluble pigments classified as flavonoids whose primary function is to protect the surface of the buds against UV rays.
This compound usually manifests as purple but can display a variety of different colors such as blue, red, pink, and black depending on the pH level throughout your plant’s life cycle and can be found not only on cannabis but also on several fruits, plants, and vegetables such as grapes, cabbage, and eggplants.
Also, because it is a flavonoid, it is said to play a role in the effect a cannabis plant can have, just like terpenes do.
How do anthocyanins work?
Anthocyanins are not produced at all times, when a certain strain has been selected to change colors, it will stop producing chlorophyll in the last weeks of the flowering stage which will allow the pigments to show even more.
Normally, cannabis plants are green because they use chlorophyll to absorb light but in its absence, they can use anthocyanins in its place and will absorb all wavelengths of the lights spectrum, except the blue (or indigo) spectrum and because it’s the dominant pigment, your plant will turn purple.
Benefits of anthocyanin
Recent studies showed that these compounds have an affinity with cannabinoid receptors, anthocyanins are known to be antioxidants and have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties, although there are ongoing studies so it’s too early to confirm if anthocyanins really bring benefits.
Lots of people claim that consuming foods with this compound can increase longevity, prevent dementia and cancer so even though it’s not confirmed, you can have an idea of the benefits.
What parts of a cannabis plant can turn purple?
Depending on the amount of anthocyanins and where they’re located, your whole plant can turn purple this is not very common, although possible.
Normally you will see certain parts of your cannabis plant changing color and not the whole plant.
All of these parts of a cannabis plant can turn purple and it usually depends on the genetics and the environment they’re grown in, even though the genetics have been specially selected, you should also try to provide the best environment to encourage your cannabis plants to exhibit the unusual colors.
Purple genetics
The best way to end up with beautiful purple (or black, pink, etc..) buds is to start with the right genetics, nowadays most seedbanks offer colorful strains that don’t depend on anything other than proper care to end up turning purple.
Have in mind that most plants contain anthocyanins but won’t exhibit different colors due to the low amount and when growing purple genetics, you won’t see a difference until the last couple of weeks before harvesting when flushing the nutrients off your plant.
All of these strains have been specially selected and bred for their unique colors, this happens because breeders select the plants that have a tendency to produce higher levels of anthocyanins, but this doesn’t mean that they will turn purple on 100% of the cases.
Even though a certain strain can be purple, they may still need certain conditions to exhibit other colors, although it will be way easier to achieve it than with other genetics, those factors include:
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Genetics
- pH level
- Nutrient amount
To encourage your plant to display unique colors, you should provide lower temperatures because cold causes chlorophyll to break down and can influence your plant into producing more anthocyanins, ideally, there should be a difference of about 10-15°C between daytime and nighttime temperatures for this to happen but it can depend from strain to strain.
Also, providing these big changes in temperature can also help non-purple strains to change colors, although it won’t work with all plants.
Our purple strains
If you’re looking for purple genetics to grow in your next grow cycle, don’t look further, we have several purple strains that have been genetically selected to exhibit unique colors without the need to do anything extra, such as our Blackberry Auto.
Tight buds with an intense purple color with a very characteristic smell, with lemon or forest fruits. – Thejusepas
Now, if you’re looking for something with a strong cerebral effect, we recommend our LSD-25 Auto.
This beautiful purple hybrid will develop dark orange pistils on mostly dark purple buds, exhibiting sometimes light purple hues with stunning yellow, and reddish-pink colors on the leaves at the end of the flowering stage and especially after properly flushing.
As you can see in the video below, when the flowers begin to form, the buds will slowly start turning purple and when your plant is ready for harvest, the buds will completely exhibit a dark purple color with sometimes lighter hues throughout them.
“…LSD-25 produced some of the best looking dark purple cannabis buds I have ever seen.” – Freeglocks
This is because our purple varieties have been genetically selected throughout the years to develops anthocyanin-rich autoflowers, so without doing anything extra, you can expect a beautiful purple color when nearing harvest.
In conclusion
Growing colorful buds won’t make them more potent but they will certainly have a better appeal and depending on the different hues, will end in flowers that you won’t even want to smoke, just stare at them all day long. If you have grown one of our purple strains before, share your experience with fellow growers, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below!
