Northern Berry (Cannabis flos S-LAB): lineage from Northern Lights #5 and Blueberry
Northern Berry is a cross of Northern Lights #5 with Blueberry, supplied to Polish pharmacies by one producer. We show what two Polish databases say about its profile, where they diverge, and what studies on caryophyllene have not shown.
| Strain Card | Northern Berry |
|---|---|
| Producers | S-LAB (1 pharmacy position) |
| Medical Brand | same as producer |
| Alternative Names | none |
| Category by sources | hybrid / hybrid-indica (sources inconsistent) |
| Leading Terpene | caryophyllene |
| Other Terpenes | farnesene humulene limonene linalool myrcene nerolidol ocimene pinene terpinolene |
| Lineage | established Northern Lights #5 × Blueberry |
| Source Consistency | divergent (2 sources) |
- Who supplies. Exclusively S-LAB, so there is nothing to compare versions, and a supply break means this strain is unavailable, not another version of it.
- Profile. Led by caryophyllene, alongside farnesene, humulene, limonene, linalool, myrcene, nerolidol, ocimene, pinene, terpinolene. We do not provide percentage shares, as sources count them against different totals.
- Origin. Established lineage, parents are Northern Lights #5 and Blueberry.
- What is missing. Two sources describe the profile differently, so the rest of the set is disputed, not established.
What is Northern Berry and where does this strain come from?
Northern Berry is a cross of Northern Lights #5 with Blueberry, consistently described by three independent catalog and seed services. It is supplied to Polish pharmacies by one producer, S-LAB. The base genetics are described inconsistently: sometimes as a hybrid, sometimes as a hybrid with indica dominance. However, the lineage is established.
Each parent has its own place in this cluster. Northern Lights #5 is also behind the lineage of Jack Herer, while Blueberry itself is available in Polish pharmacies as a separate raw material, from two producers at once. The berry part of the name refers to a specific parent, not an association invented by the sales department.
The consistency of sources does not arise from name similarity. A common word in the names of two strains does not in itself prove kinship in either direction; in this cluster, the lineage remains unestablished for twenty-five cultivars out of eighty-five. Northern Berry does not belong to this group, as the parents are provided independently by the breeder’s catalog, a cultivation journal service, and the Polish database of pharmacy strains.
The lineage describes a line, not a specific batch from the pharmacy. The same name may be managed by different breeders from slightly different starting material, and the registration designation of the raw material does not refer to it in any way. Thus, the record of the parents indicates where the strain originated as a breeding idea, not what exactly is in the package issued from the pharmacy.
Which producers supply Northern Berry to Polish pharmacies?
One: S-LAB. In our list of pharmacy positions, this strain has only one variant, so there is nothing to compare between producers. The raw material is marketed under the registration designation without a commercial part, and the term Northern Berry appears only in the descriptions of wholesalers and catalog services.
| Producer | Registration Name without Numerical Part | Declared THC Content | Form | Position in our list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S-LAB | Cannabis flos S-LAB | 19.8-24.2% | herb for vaporization | one |
The table does not include two things that could not be maintained in it for long. The first is current availability: permits and deliveries shift in a rhythm that no party can keep up with, and at the time of data collection, one of the databases marked this position as unavailable. The second is the price comparison, conducted only in the list of available strains, so it does not age in dozens of places at once.
The registration designation carries a number, and that is a separate trap. The full record includes the declared THC content and the upper limit of CBD, but both values are declarations from the producer with an allowed deviation, not the result of testing the batch that the patient receives. Therefore, we provide the name without the numerical part, and the content separately, as a range. The producer itself is dedicated a separate entry about S-LAB.
A separate shelf is the hemp herb sold without a prescription, which in our store is listed in the herb category. These are different products than pharmacy raw material, with a different purpose, and we do not mix them here with what a doctor prescribes.
What does Northern Berry smell and taste like?
- farnesene farnesene
- humulene humulene
- caryophyllene caryophyllene (leading in the pharmacy list)
- limonene limonene
- linalool linalool
- myrcene myrcene
- nerolidol nerolidol
- ocimene ocimene
- pinene pinene
- terpinolene terpinolene
Descriptions converge on a berry and fruity note, with an earthy background and a citrus accent. However, all come from catalog descriptions, not from measuring a specific batch. The smell of the herb shifts with the batch, with storage conditions, and with the time elapsed since harvest.
The aroma is due to terpenes, and here two Polish databases differ in composition. They agree on caryophyllene, myrcene, and linalool. Beyond that, the sets diverge: one database adds limonene, the other lists farnesene, humulene, nerolidol, ocimene, pinene, and terpinolene. For the reader, this means that there is not one list of terpenes for this strain, but two lists with a common core.
At none of these names do we place a number expressed in percentages. The reason is arithmetic: when summing the values that Polish databases assign to individual terpenes in one position, the result stops below half, while in another it reaches four-fifths. Since the total sometimes comes out smaller, sometimes larger, each source divides by a different total and nowhere reveals that divisor. Such a fraction placed in the description of a drug pretends to be a test result.
The smell does not predict how the raw material will act. Caryophyllene is sometimes described as peppery, but what has been shown about it pertains to the CB2 receptor and pain models in mice, not sensory experiences. We break this down separately in the entry about caryophyllene.
How long does it take for Northern Berry to take effect and how long does the effect last?
This depends not on the strain, but on the route of administration. No separate measurement for Northern Berry has been published, so the ranges below describe vaporization and oral administration in general. The declared THC content does not resolve anything here: it speaks to the potency of a single dose, not the progression over time.
The route of administration determines the progression more than the strain itself, and the ranges below describe it, not this cultivar, as no pharmacokinetic study for a single cultivar has been published.
| Vaporization | After Swallowing | |
|---|---|---|
| First Sensations | after a few minutes | from half an hour to two |
| Onset | another ten to thirty minutes | slow, over several hours |
| Total Duration | within two to four hours | after six, sometimes eight hours |
| Typical Error | none | taking a dose after thirty minutes, which gives both doses at once |
The lineage does not shift anything here, nor does the profile composition. Neither of the two databases describing Northern Berry provides a measurement of the duration of action, and in publicly available materials, such measurements simply do not exist.
What is known and what is not known about the effects of this strain?
It is known what isolated caryophyllene does in two studies on mice. It is not known what this herb does in humans: studies are conducted for medicinal products with a batch number, not for the strain name. The rest of the circulating descriptions are catalog material and patient reports.
The first study was published in 2008 by the Gertsch team in PNAS, and it concerned binding to the receptor. (E)-caryophyllene selectively bound to the CB2 receptor (Ki = 155 nM) and inhibited carrageenan-induced paw swelling in wild-type mice, but not in CB2 receptor-deficient mice (Cnr2-/-), indicating a CB2-dependent mechanism; the study did not include any anxiety tests. The work is listed in the database under PMID 18574142.
The second, from 2014, appeared in European Neuropsychopharmacology and concerned pain. Oral caryophyllene reduced the late inflammatory phase of pain in the formalin test in a CB2 receptor-dependent manner, with no effect on the early phase; in a neuropathic pain model, it alleviated thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia without developing tolerance with chronic administration. This is listed under PMID 24210682.
The boundary of these results is as important as the results themselves. In neither of the two studies was caryophyllene tested on humans or in inhaled form from the herb; both works concern oral or systemic administration in mice in pain and inflammation models, not sleep or mood.
Separately stands what the commercial description says: relaxing and balanced effects. This is a seller’s declaration, not a measurement result, and we treat it as such in this text.
What side effects have been reported from this strain?
None specifically for it. Safety monitoring in Poland is conducted from the perspective of the product with a batch number, and the strain’s trade name is not a unit of accounting in this system. The following paragraph thus describes hemp herb as a group of raw materials, not this one cultivar. This applies to every position in the list, not just this one.
Reports of side effects are collected for medicinal products with a batch number, not for the strain name, so the following pertains to hemp herb as a group of raw materials. The most commonly reported are dry mouth, red eyes, and increased heart rate. Less frequently described are dizziness upon rapid standing, daytime drowsiness, and temporary worsening of short-term memory, as well as anxiety that increases with dosage. A separate issue is medications taken concurrently, especially sedatives and those affecting coagulation: their assessment requires knowledge of the entire list of preparations, not just the description of the plant. We do not provide the frequency of these symptoms numerically, as public listings for hemp herb in Poland do not separate them by individual products.
The lack of reports publicly described under the name Northern Berry is not a sign that this raw material is milder than others. It is a sign of how the register is constructed.
What does temperature change during vaporization of this strain?
Less than popular tables promise. Caryophyllene, the leading terpene in this profile, boils at a higher temperature than more volatile terpenes, but vaporization does not start only at the boiling point. The method of administering the raw material is determined by the attending physician, and the herb is dispensed by prescription, not chosen according to a table found online.
| Terpene from this profile | Record from PubChem | Pressure given at measurement |
|---|---|---|
| caryophyllene | 256-259 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| linalool | 194-197 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| terpinolene | 183-185 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| limonene | 175-176 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| myrcene | 166-167 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| pinene | 156 °C | 760 mm Hg |
| humulene | 99-100 °C | 3 mm Hg |
| nerolidol | 275-277 °C | not provided |
| ocimene | 177 °C | not provided |
| farnesene | no record in the database | not applicable |
The numbers in the table are boiling points recorded in the public database PubChem along with the pressure at which they were measured, and only together do they mean anything. Humulene has a lower record there than any other terpene in this profile, but it comes from a measurement in nearly a vacuum, so placed in the same column with atmospheric values is a falsehood, not a rounding. For farnesene, the database does not provide a boiling point at all, and for nerolidol and ocimene, the pressure is missing, without which the numbers cannot be compared to anything.
Vaporization does not have a threshold for activation. Terpenes also evaporate below their boiling point, and the rate depends on vapor pressure, which increases exponentially with temperature. Additionally, the setting of the vaporizer describes the temperature of the heating element or air, not the herb itself; this difference exists, but no one has publicly measured it. We write about this in more detail in the text about vaporization of terpenes from herb.
Which strains are related to Northern Berry?
| Strain | Common Parent | Leading Terpene | Producers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Herer | Northern Lights #5 | myrcene | S-LAB, Tilray |
One: Jack Herer. They share Northern Lights #5, the common parent of both lineages. Beyond this kinship, the graph of this cluster indicates nothing, and Blueberry is not a sibling, but the second parent, and itself stands in Polish pharmacies as a separate position. We count siblings only by a common, named parent.
Jack Herer has three parents in our graph, and only one is common. The rest of its lineage leads to haze and shiva skunk, which is a direction that Northern Berry does not share. This is also visible in the profiles: for Jack Herer, our data indicates myrcene as the leading terpene, while for Northern Berry it is caryophyllene. A separate entry is dedicated to Jack Herer.
Blueberry is a parent in this family, not a sibling, and this distinction has practical implications: a parent may be available concurrently with its offspring, so both positions can stand in the same wholesaler. Blueberry also has its own entry, and its lineage leads to completely different lines than the lineage of Northern Berry.
A short list of siblings is therefore not a lack of data, but a consequence of this rule. Broad style families, such as haze or afghani, do not create kinships, as they are a category, not a single plant; if they were counted, half the cluster would be siblings of the other half, and the word itself would cease to mean anything.
Frequently Asked Questions about Northern Berry
Is Northern Berry an indica strain?
It depends on which database you read. One describes it as a hybrid, the other as a hybrid with indica dominance. Such a label is a descriptive category, not a measurement result, so the divergence of sources is not unusual here.
How much THC does Northern Berry have?
The source provides a declared value, and the producer has the right to deviation in both directions, so an honest record is the range 19.8-24.2%. A single number from the label would suggest precision, which is not present in plant raw material.
Which terpene leads in the profile of Northern Berry?
Caryophyllene, but this is indicated by one source only, as it is the only one that provides the weighted order of terpenes. The other lists the set without ranking, so the precedence of caryophyllene is based on a single description, not on two consistent measurements.
Is Northern Berry consistently available in pharmacies?
No. The list of positions in wholesalers shifts along with permits and deliveries, and at the time of data collection for this text, one of the databases marked this strain as unavailable. The current state is checked in the pharmacy, not in the strain description.
Can Northern Berry be purchased without a prescription?
No. Hemp herb is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor’s prescription in the Rpw category, which means that the application and method of administration are determined by the attending physician.
How does Northern Berry differ from Jack Herer?
They share one common parent, Northern Lights #5, and diverge on the leading terpene: in our data for Jack Herer, it is myrcene, for Northern Berry, it is caryophyllene. Jack Herer is also available in pharmacies from two producers, while Northern Berry is from one.
Hemp herb is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor’s prescription in the Rpw category. The material is informational in nature and does not replace the advice of a doctor or pharmacist. Editorial text: editorial team ubucha.pl.
