If you like dense rock hard buds you’ll love Purple Banana as she is one of the densest strains you can find
Purple Banana is a cross between a Banana OG female and a Purple Mayhem male. Both parent strains are magnificent in their own right and when blended together create something stellar! Growers and patients alike will absolutely fawn over this.
Behemoth, massive and enormous are a few words that come to mind when describing the size of her individual flowers. Under Leds you can expect tops the size of 1.5 liter bottles and under HID or double-ended HPS slightly larger ones. Even though it produces giant blossoms, it certainly doesn’t sacrifice resin production. Her resin-encrusted buds remind me of white widow in the way the resin just covers and coats the entire plant from head-to-toe.
If you like dense rock hard buds you’ll love Purple Banana as she is one of the densest strains you can find. It’s even hard to break off a bract or chunk of bud to pack a bowl. When a strain is this dense I classify it as a “break a tooth off a grinder” type strain meaning that if you don’t have a high quality grinder you are definitely losing a tooth trying to grind this stuff up!
Purple Banana is off the charts in all categories and especially when it comes to potency. You may want to find a nice place to sit and relax while medicating with this strain just in case you get weak in the knees or lightheaded and need to sit or lay down for a while. This will instantly become a go-to strain for patients with higher tolerances.
As far as flavor and aromas go you can expect to get musty lavender and lilac combined with musty fruit and berries with undertones of whiskey throughout the genepool. It’s funky, it’s sweet, it’s tart and it’s grapey…what’s not to like? I absolutely love the flavor and the level of musty funk the Banana OG contributes to the sweetness of the Purple Mayhem. Its smoke is smooth but also expanding which will likely induce coughing if underestimated or held in too long.
Grow Report
With an average-to-slightly-faster-than-average vegetative state and a forgiving nutrient demand make this strain fairly easy to care for during veg. She doesn’t naturally branch out and form a bush, but that’s okay because if you adhere to the old school method of a single stem plant in a 6” pot, 2 main stems in an 8” pot, 3 main stems in a 10” pot, 4 main stems in a 12” pot, etc. you’ll get the monster colas out of her that she’s famous for. Even when limiting her to 4 main stems in a 5 or 7 gallon pot during veg, once you flip her to bloom the secondary branches will stretch and fill up the canopy a bit. You should find that this leaves her bushing out quite nicely and will end up with you enjoying plenty of big buds.
She has a slightly-faster-than-average metabolism during bloom and with a bloom time of 60 days she pumps those huge buds out fast. You can have a heavier hand with her nutrient wise from the start of bloom up until about 10 days or so from harvest. If you’ve been lighter handed food wise you can do the standard 7 day flush, but you definitely don’t want to roach the flavor on this one so stay focused. Purple Banana gets mammoth Jurassic Park-sized indica dominant fan leaves during flowering. The stems will harden fairly fast so make sure you have your training started early if SCROG or LST is your style. Her stems and branches are hearty and don’t require a crazy amount of staking, but even though it’s pretty minimal you need to be careful because you’d hate to discover one of her prehistoric-sized buds flopped over and/or snapped. Trellising is always nice and can make things easier when running the whole room at once as opposed to those who perpetual harvest. Just make sure to get the trellising with 4” squares as a minimum and preferably grab the 6” squares for this beast! Enjoy and Salute!
Smoke Report
This bud smokes as if you took a bowl of cannabis and topped it off with some high quality bubble hash. A bowl just keeps on hitting and hitting and hitting and when you think you’re finally about to cache it out it keeps on hitting. Even when outside on a bright and sunny day grabbing some quality solar puffing it’ll make you say “no mas” before you finish the whole thing!
Strong indica effects that can best described as lethargic. Patients with very high tolerances may say that the effects are very stony, dazey and loopy almost. In larger quantities it affects the equilibrium and as a result motion sickness is easily induced. Not recommended for those who suffer from motion sickness or medicating with before snow skiing or boating and water skiing – just about any physical activity really, but definitely those involving moving fast or traveling in a vehicle. Just driving the car down the road was making me feel sick and like I was about to vomit. It hits the brain hard too so you end up in this totally “Dazed and Confused” state and that’s when the motion sickness kicks in. I have a high tolerance but most patients will say “uncle” and tap out in a stoned wonderland before they get to the point where they feel the motion sickness. I don’t recommend operating heavy machinery whatsoever while feeling the effects from this one, heck not even a little chainsaw and this goes for the seasoned smokers as well!
Strain Info
The Strain: Purple Banana
Breeder: NorStar Genetics
The Parents: Banana OG (f) x Purple Mayhem (m)
Indica/Sativa: 80/20
Stretch Factor: .75x-1.0x max
Flowering Time: 60 days
Yield: Above Average to Slightly Heavy of Mammoth Sized Flowers
Suitable For: Indoor, Greenhouse and Outdoor
Length of Effects: 4.5 hours minimum
Tolerance Buildup: Very Low
Smell/Taste: Musty Purple Flowers and Musty Fruit with Strong Undertones of Whiskey
Medicinal Applications: Pain Management, Fibromyalgia, Muscle Relaxer, Insomnia, Appetite Disorders such as IBS and Crohn’s, Stress. Would be good to wean people off opioids, pain killers and possibly alcohol.
Words and Photos by: The Organic Mechanic
IG @organics_garage
Official Beta Tester for NorStar Genetics
NORSTARGENETICS.COM
Originally published in Weed World Magazine issue 138
