54 Purple Kush (Mendo Purps 54 x Bubba Kush) is Mendo Purps crossed to Bubba Kush. Mendo Purps is the Mendocino County purple that came out of Northern California in the late nineties. Bubba Kush is the West Coast indica benchmark, a Los Angeles clone from the mid-1990s named after the grower who kept it. Between them they cover ground neither reaches alone. These are held cuts, not recreations. CSI's entire catalogue works that way, and it is the reason their crosses are worth chasing.

54 identifies the Mendo Purps used here. Numbered cuts come out of a population that was grown and sorted, and the number rides with the plant that was kept. Two crosses that both say Mendo Purps are only the same cross if the number matches too.

Order matters in a cross name. In 54 Purple Kush (Mendo Purps 54 x Bubba Kush) the Mendo Purps side supplied the seed and Bubba Kush the pollen, and the reciprocal - the same two plants the other way round - is a separate breeding decision with its own results.

Genetic Lineage

• Mother: Mendo Purps. Mendo Purps - the source stock Purple Urkle was selected out of. The purple lines people can name mostly run back through it. Its own origin is a story rather than a pedigree - the usual account has it grown from the bagseed of a purple Afghani kept since 1977 and not planted until 1998, and no source gives a clean lineage for it. It circulated clone-only at first; BC Bud Depot later stabilised seed of it, and it took High Times Strain of the Year in 2007. It is not a heavy yielder and was never grown for that.
• Father: Bubba Kush. The West Coast indica benchmark, a Los Angeles clone from the mid-1990s named after the grower who kept it. Dense colas need airflow; the Pre-98 cut is the shorter, broader-leafed, heavier expression.
• How to read it. Everything below splits into what one parent gives and what the other does. Plants that take from both are the ones to keep.

Flavor and Aroma Profile

The two halves stack rather than blend, which is the whole reason to run it.

• The Aroma. Grape-forward and fruity, with the colour to match from the Mendo Purps side, against dark cocoa and roasted coffee with old hash and wood underneath from the Bubba Kush side.
• The Taste. Dark grape with berry behind it up front, turning to coffee bean and spiced earth, thick and hashy at the finish through the exhale.

The two halves, side by side

• Timing. Mendo Purps runs eight to nine weeks, with outdoor crops coming down in the middle of October, and that is the half of this cross you can actually plan around.
• Two noses, one pack. Mendo Purps contributes fruity and grape-like with deep colouration. Bubba Kush contributes roasted coffee, dark cocoa and old-school hash with a woody edge. Which dominates is the main thing that varies.
• Structure varies hard here. Slightly indica-dominant and not a big plant - three to four feet indoors, six to eight outdoors. it is not a beginner's plant: it wants training and trimming to yield properly from one parent; short to medium and stocky, broad deep-green leaves, tight internodes, modest 1.2 to 1.5 times stretch; golf-ball to cola-sized buds with thick calyces and heavy resin, forest green through to plum from the other. Plan the canopy for the taller outcome.
• Opposite ends. Mendo Purps is reported as settled rather than racy; Bubba Kush as gentle and unhurried, warm and loosening, body-forward. The cross sits somewhere between and moves plant to plant.

Cultivation and Growth Traits

• Plant Structure. The two parents disagree here, so plan for range. Mendo Purps is a compact plant - three to four feet indoors, twice that outside - leaning slightly indica, and demanding enough that training and trimming are not optional if you want a crop. Bubba Kush is a stocky plant with barely any stretch - one and a half times at most - carrying dense, thick-calyxed flower that colours from deep green towards plum under a heavy resin load.
• Vegetative Phase and Training. Open the middle out early. Light reaching the lower sites is worth more than any late correction.
• Flowering Time. Mendo Purps runs eight to nine weeks, with outdoor crops coming down in the middle of October. Start checking trichomes a week before you expect to be ready.

Effects and Experience

• The Mind. Growers describe Mendo Purps as settled rather than racy.
• The Body. Bubba Kush is reported as gentle and unhurried, warm and loosening, body-forward, and that is the side supplying the weight here.

In the pack

Feminized seeds from Humboldt CSI. Nearly everything CSI put out is built from cuts they hold themselves rather than from other people's seed lines, which is why their catalogue reads like a list of clones instead of a list of brands. Authentic Humboldt CSI genetics.