The Official Cannabis Independent strain guides
Northern Lights Shop

Genetics

Is Northern Lights indica or sativa? Its genetics and family tree

Northern Lights is an indica. Leafly lists its parents as Afghani and Thai, but other accounts describe pure Afghani plants, with Thai sativa added to some lines only after they reached the Netherlands.1,2,3

Family tree

  • AfghaniIndica landrace from Afghanistan; the core of every account
  • ThaiSativa landrace; whether it was in the original is disputed

Northern Lights

  • Shiva SkunkSkunk #1 × NL #5
  • Jack HererHaze hybrid × (NL #5 × Shiva Skunk)
  • Super Silver HazeSkunk, Northern Lights and Haze
  • Silver HazeHaze × Northern Lights
  • Hash PlantHash Plant original × Northern Lights
  • LowryderRuderalis × NL #2 × William’s Wonder
Parents and offspring as reported by Leafly.1,4,5,6,7,8,9

The two parents

Afghani is an indica named after its geographic origin; Leafly says breeders treasure it for heavy resin production that is passed on genetically.10 Every account puts it at the core of Northern Lights: Leafly’s history says the original plants came from indigenous Afghani landrace strains.2

Thai is a sativa landrace from Thailand that reached the US in the 1970s and 80s; Leafly lists it as the second parent of Northern Lights.1,11

Afghani × Thai or pure Afghani? The accounts

Sources agree on Afghani but not on Thai. The accounts can all be partly right: the seed company that first sold Northern Lights reportedly kept some lines pure and crossed others with Thai sativa.2,3

AccountWho says so
Afghani × ThaiLeafly; Weedmaps; Sensi Seeds (“Afghani and Thai genetics”); Crop King; ILGM1,12,13,14,15
Pure Afghani: an inbred Afghani lineAllBud; High Times (2019)16,17
Afghani originals, with Thai added to some lines in the NetherlandsLeafly’s history (2014); SeedFinder; Royal Queen Seeds; Alchimia; CannaConnection2,3,18,19,20
Seeds from Afghanistan, Colombia and Mexico, first bred in CaliforniaThe French-language Wikipedia article, which is flagged as needing sources21

Royal Queen Seeds says The Seed Bank sold Northern Lights #1 as a pure Afghani inbred indica and crossed some of the other Northern Lights plants with Thai sativa, which is why many versions are now sold as Afghani × Thai.3

How indica is it?

Every source treats it as indica or indica-dominant. Leafly lists it as an indica and calls it a pure indica, Weedmaps lists it as an indica, Sensi Seeds sells its seeds as 90% indica and 10% sativa, and Royal Queen Seeds calls its S1 version 100% indica.1,12,13,22 Leafly rates its effects mostly calming.1

Leafly’s history notes that some phenotypes were hybridized with Thai sativas while others kept the pure indica genetics, and that some versions sold today show sativa-like traits.2

The numbered plants, #5 and seed versions

The story told by Royal Queen Seeds, Alchimia and CannaConnection is of 11 plants numbered Northern Lights #1 to #11, of which #5 and #1 stood out.3,19,20 Leafly’s history calls #5 the “top crop”, and Leafly keeps a separate entry for Northern Lights #5 (aka NL#5) with Afghani as its parent.2,23

Sensi Seeds built its Northern Lights by back-crossing three original variants, according to High Times; SeedFinder’s genealogy lists them as NL #1, NL #2 and NL #5.17,24 Our lab dataset counts results for products with numbered names, such as Northern Lights #1, #5 or #11, as Northern Lights.25

Seed versions sold today include Sensi Seeds’ regular, feminized and automatic Northern Lights, Royal Queen Seeds’ Northern Light (an S1) and Northern Light Auto, and feminized or autoflowering seeds from Crop King and ILGM.13,14,15,22,26,27,28,29 Atomic Northern Lights is a separate strain: Leafly says Dr. Atomic Seeds recrossed Northern Lights in Canada.30

What our lab data adds

We excluded 251 test results, across all product types, sold under near-miss names. The largest group is crosses with Stardawg: 82 tests under 3 spellings of "Stardawg x Northern Lights".25

Strains bred from Northern Lights

StrainCrossSource
Northern Lights #5 × HazeHaze × Northern Lights #5 (Sensi Seeds); 70% sativaLeafly; Sensi Seeds31,32
Shiva SkunkSkunk #1 × Northern Lights #5 (Sensi Seeds)Leafly4
Jack HererA Haze hybrid × (Northern Lights #5 × Shiva Skunk), Sensi SeedsLeafly5
Super Silver HazeSkunk, Northern Lights and Haze (Green House Seeds)Leafly; High Times6,17
Silver HazeHaze × Northern Lights (Sensi Seeds)Leafly7
Hash PlantThe Hash Plant original from the US × Northern Lights (Sensi Seeds)Leafly8
Mango HazeNorthern Lights #5, Skunk and HazeLeafly33
Fruit PunchSkunk, Haze and Northern LightsLeafly34
Lowryder (autoflower)Ruderalis × Northern Lights #2, then William’s Wonder (Joint Doctor)Leafly; Alchimia9,19
Cinderella 99 (grandchild)Jack Herer × Shiva Skunk (Brothers Grimm)Leafly35
Super Lemon Haze (grandchild)Lemon Skunk × Super Silver Haze (Green House Seeds)Leafly36

Not confirmed: Super Skunk and Kali Mist are sometimes linked to Northern Lights, but Leafly lists Super Skunk as Skunk #1 × Afghani and calls Kali Mist’s genetic history unknown. High Times credits Northern Lights #5 with a role in Romulan, which Leafly lists as North American Indica × White Rhino.37,38,39,40

Sources

  1. Leafly, Northern Lights strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  2. Leafly (Bailey Rahn), Strain highlight: Northern Lights, the indica legend up close (2014-05-01). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  3. Royal Queen Seeds (Luke Sumpter), Northern Lights: a cannabis classic and true indica legend (2020-03-20). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  4. Leafly, Shiva Skunk strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  5. Leafly, Jack Herer strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  6. Leafly, Super Silver Haze strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  7. Leafly, Silver Haze strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  8. Leafly, Hash Plant strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  9. Leafly, Lowryder strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  10. Leafly, Afghani strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  11. Leafly, Thai strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  12. Weedmaps, Northern Lights strain page. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  13. Sensi Seeds, Northern Lights regular seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  14. Crop King Seeds, Northern Lights feminized marijuana seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  15. ILGM, Northern Lights feminized seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  16. AllBud, Northern Lights marijuana strain information and reviews. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  17. High Times (Joe Bender), The history of hybrids: how breeding and selection led to modern marijuana (2019-10-28). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  18. SeedFinder, Northern Lights (Sensi Seeds). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  19. Alchimia, The origins of Northern Lights (2015-08-17). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  20. CannaConnection (Adam Parsons), The origins of the Northern Lights strain (2020-08-13). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  21. Wikipédia (French), Northern Lights (cannabis). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  22. Royal Queen Seeds, Northern Light feminized seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  23. Leafly, Northern Lights #5 strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  24. SeedFinder, Northern Lights (Sensi Seeds): lineage and hybrids. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  25. Cannlytics (CC BY 4.0), cannabis_results: public state lab results (filtered and aggregated by Official Cannabis). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  26. Sensi Seeds, Northern Lights feminized seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  27. Sensi Seeds, Northern Lights Automatic seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  28. Royal Queen Seeds, Northern Light Auto seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  29. ILGM, Northern Lights autoflower seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  30. Leafly, Atomic Northern Lights strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  31. Leafly, Northern Lights #5 x Haze strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  32. Sensi Seeds, Northern Lights #5 x Haze regular seeds. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  33. Leafly, Mango Haze strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  34. Leafly, Fruit Punch strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  35. Leafly, Cinderella 99 strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  36. Leafly, Super Lemon Haze strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  37. Leafly, Super Skunk strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  38. Leafly, Kali Mist strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  39. High Times (Nico Escondido), 25 greatest strains of all time (2014-10-09). Accessed Oct 3, 2026.
  40. Leafly, Romulan strain information. Accessed Oct 3, 2026.