Well since im not doing nothing at the moment and nothings going down on my thread, thought i might drop some knowledge and maybe get some thoughts in return.
The subject is Anthocyanins. What originally brought me to the subject was my love for BLUE weed. I dont know why but in my eyes there are very few things more beautifull then a Neon blue bud, or baby blue nugs with hot pink pistels. Purple? Oh yea, shes good too. Colors, scents, and the high. Thats what im about. So how do you guys do get the most colors from your plants?? I know the basics and have this as a reference
Purple Cannabis
The origins of purple cannabis are as much of a mystery as the origins of the plant itself. However, purpling is as natural as the changing colors on the leaves of deciduous trees in autumn, which is attributed in part to the pigment anthocyanin. Anthocyanin expression is controlled by both genetic and environmental factors. Purpling is a simple dominant Mendelian trait, with quantitative expression.
Environmental Factors
Several pigments are responsible for color in plants: chlorophyll, carotene, xanthophyll, and anthocyanins. Chlorophyll is the pigment in chloroplasts of plants that reflects green light. Plants use the energy absorbed by chlorophyll in photosynthesis to produce food for their growth and development. It is continually broken down during photosynthesis and being replenished by the plant.
Carotene and xanthophyll are pigments that reflect orange and yellow light respectively. Both are present in the chloroplasts, with chlorophyll enabling the plant to absorb a wider range of wavelengths of light and thus capture more energy. These pigments are present in such small quantities that the more dominant chlorophyll typically masks them.
During flowering, with the passing of summer, days become shorter. The phytochromes, the light-sensing mechanisms in leaves, recognize the shorter day lengths. The shorter days and lower temperatures arrest chlorophyll production. Chlorophyll breaks down faster than it is replaced, allowing the yellow and orange pigments to be unmasked.
The molecules reflecting red wavelengths, anthocyanins, are water-soluble pigments that occur in the cell sap (he made that up), creating the red, pink, and purple hues. These pigments may not be present during the summer, or vegetative cycle, but their formation is encouraged during a succession of cool nights and sunny days. During these days when photosynthesis and chlorophyll production are decreasing, an abundance of sugars accumulates in the leaf. The cool nights promote a separation layer of cells in the petiole—where the leaf attaches to the stem—that prevents sugar from flowing out of the leaf, and also arrests the flow of nutrients into the leaf. The formation of anthocyanin requires bright light, a diminishing water supply, and the accumulation of sugars trapped in the leaf.
Another factor that can cause purpling is nutrient deficiency, generally phosphorus. Although these stunted plants may bedazzle the novice, they are typically quite distinguishable from naturally occurring anthocyanin expression, due to the other visible adverse side effects of nutrient deficiency, such as leaf and bud malformation and low calyx-to-leaf ratios.
Genetics/Degrees of Purple
The discussion of Mendelian genetics, anthocyanin-expression traits and which genes at which loci influence them, mean and variance, and heritability in quantitative inheritance is beyond the scope here and will have to be left for a future article. However, there are easily observable indicators that aid in the quest for the purple kind.
I found some of the things said in there misleading and looked alot of things up. Ended up at Wikipidia alot because by far it coincided with what others were finding in things that i was looking up. As a matter of fact the Wiki article was great.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin
(This is not the whole thing this is what i copied and posted)
Anthocyanins (also anthocyans; from Greek: ἀνθός (anthos) = flower + κυανός (kyanos) = blue) are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that may appear red, purple, or blue according to pH. They belong to a parent class of molecules called flavonoids synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway; they are odorless and nearly flavorless, contributing to taste as a moderately astringent sensation. Anthocyanins occur in all tissues of higher plants, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. Anthoxanthins are their clear, white to yellow counterparts occurring in plants. Anthocyanins are derivatives of anthocyanidins which include pendant sugars.
In flowers, bright reds and purples are adaptive for attracting pollinators. In fruits, the colorful skins also attract the attention of animals, which may eat the fruits and disperse the seeds.
In photosynthetic tissues (such as leaves and sometimes stems), anthocyanins have been shown to act as a "sunscreen", protecting cells from high-light damage by absorbing blue-green and UV light, thereby protecting the tissues from photoinhibition, or high-light stress. This has been shown to occur in red juvenile leaves, autumn leaves, and broad-leaved evergreen leaves that turn red during the winter. It has also been proposed that red coloration of leaves may camouflage leaves from herbivores blind to red wavelengths, or signal unpalatability, since anthocyanin synthesis often coincides with synthesis of unpalatable phenolic compounds.
In addition to their role as light-attenuators, anthocyanins also act as powerful antioxidants. However, it is not clear whether anthocyanins can significantly contribute to scavenging of free-radicals produced through metabolic processes in leaves, since they are located in the vacuole, and thus, spatially separated from metabolic reactive oxygen species. Some studies have shown that
hydrogen peroxide produced in other organelles can be neutralized by vacuolar anthocyanin.
Nature, primitive agriculture, and plant breeding have produced various uncommon crops containing anthocyanins, including blue- or red-fleshed potatoes and purple or red broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots and corn. Tomatoes have been bred conventionally for high anthocyanin content by crossing wild relatives with the common tomato to transfer a gene called the anthocyanin fruit tomato ("aft") gene into a larger and more palatable fruit.
Tomatoes have also been genetically modified with transcription factors from snapdragons to produce high levels of anthocyanins in the fruits. Anthocyanins can also be found in naturally ripened olives, and are partly responsible for the red and purple colors of some olives.
Autumn leaf color
Many science textbooks incompletely state that autumn coloration (including red) is the result of breakdown of green chlorophyll, which unmasks the already-present orange, yellow, and red pigments (carotenoids, xanthophylls, and anthocyanins, respectively). While this is indeed the case for the carotenoids and xanthophylls (orange and yellow pigments), anthocyanins are not synthesized until the plant has begun breaking down the chlorophyll, presumably for photoprotection during nitrogen translocation.
Biosynthesis
Anthocyanins and carotenoids contribute distinctive pigmentation to blood oranges.Anthocyanin pigments are assembled like all other flavonoids from two different streams of chemical raw materials in the cell:
One stream involves the shikimate pathway to produce the amino acid phenylalanine. (see phenylpropanoids)
The other stream produces 3 molecules of malonyl-CoA, a C3 unit from a C2 unit (acetyl-CoA).
These streams meet and are coupled together by the enzyme chalcone synthase (CHS), which forms an intermediate chalcone via a polyketide folding mechanism that is commonly found in plants.
The chalcone is subsequently isomerized by the enzyme chalcone isomerase (CHI) to the prototype pigment naringenin.
Naringenin is subsequently oxidized by enzymes such as flavanone hydroxylase (FHT or F3H), flavonoid 3' hydroxylase and flavonoid 3' 5'-hydroxylase.
These oxidation products are further reduced by the enzyme dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (DFR) to the corresponding colorless[20] leucoanthocyanidins.
It was believed that leucoanthocyanidins are the immediate precursors of the next enzyme, a dioxygenase referred to as anthocyanidin synthase (ANS) or leucoanthocyanidin dioxygenase (LDOX). It was recently shown however that flavan-3-ols, the products of leucoanthocyanidin reductase (LAR), are the true substrates of ANS/LDOX.
The resulting, unstable anthocyanidins are further coupled to sugar molecules by enzymes like UDP-3-O-glucosyltransferase to yield the final relatively stable anthocyanins.
More than five enzymes are thus required to synthesize these pigments, each working in concert. Any even minor disruption in any of the mechanism of these enzymes by either genetic or environmental factors would halt anthocyanin production.
but if anyone else has anything to add id like to hear it. I have actually done alot of research the last couple of months on Anthocyanins and am finding that in most other plants darkness degrades anthocyanins. Even in cut plants.
