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Papaya No 26 Shop
The Official Cannabis collection · sheet 26No 26 · Papayavs Northern Lights

Comparison

Papaya vs Northern Lights

Leafly users give both the same top three effects, relaxed, sleepy and hungry, and Northern Lights sits in Papaya’s family tree either way: Leafly lists it as a parent of Ice, and Jack Herer’s parents include Northern Lights #5.1,2,3,4 The flavors differ, tropical fruit against pine and earth.1,2 Northern Lights tests lower in state labs: 20.03% median THC across 406 tests, against 21.70% across 262 for Papaya.5

Side by side

PapayaNorthern Lights
TypeIndica-leaning hybrid: indica-dominant per Leafly, 70% indica per AllBud1,6Indica2
LineageCitral #13 × Ice #2, or Jack Herer × Skunk #1 for the legacy line (Nirvana Seeds)1,7Afghani × Thai2
Median THC (state lab tests)21.70% (262 tests)20.03% (406 tests)
Middle half of THC results17.43%–26.71%17.28%–22.05%
Top terpenes (median)Limonene, β-Myrcene, Linalool (98 tests)β-Caryophyllene, Limonene, β-Myrcene (15 tests)
Leafly’s top effectsRelaxed, sleepy, hungry1Sleepy, relaxed, hungry2
FlavorTree fruit, tropical, apricot1Pine, earthy, woody2
Flowering8 or 9 weeks (Leafly)145–50 days2

Lab rows come from the same state lab dataset and matching rules for both strains.5

Lab-tested THC: Papaya vs Northern Lights

16% 18% 20% 22% 24% 26% 28% Papaya Papaya: median 21.70%, middle half 17.43%–26.71%, 262 tests 21.7% n=262 Northern Lights Northern Lights: median 20.03%, middle half 17.28%–22.05%, 406 tests 20.0% n=406 Median total THC (dot) and middle half of tests (bar)
Median and middle half of total THC in state lab tests.5

Where Northern Lights comes in

In the Citral × Ice account, Northern Lights is a grandparent: Nirvana describes Ice as combining Afghan, Shiva, Northern Lights and Skunk ancestry, and Leafly lists Northern Lights and Skunk #1 as Ice’s parents.3,8 In the legacy account it sits further back, through the Northern Lights #5 in Jack Herer.4 Northern Lights has its own guide in the Official Cannabis network at northernlightsstrain.com.

Which is easier to find

In Weedmaps snapshots from Oct 4, 2026 (Papaya) and Oct 3, 2026 (Northern Lights), 63 stores within 50 miles of Los Angeles listed Papaya flower on Weedmaps, against 98 stores for Northern Lights; around New York the counts were 11 and 97.9 Papaya’s counts include items named Papaya Kush and may include a few products of uncertain identity (see where to find it).9

More comparisons

Sources

  1. Leafly, Papaya strain information. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  2. Leafly, Northern Lights strain information. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  3. Leafly, Ice strain information. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  4. Leafly, Jack Herer strain information. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  5. Cannlytics (CC BY 4.0), cannabis_results: public state lab results (filtered and aggregated by Official Cannabis). Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  6. AllBud, Papaya marijuana strain information and reviews. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  7. SeedFinder, Papaya (legacy) (Nirvana Seeds): strain info and breeder description. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  8. SeedFinder, Ice (Nirvana Seeds): strain info. Accessed Oct 4, 2026.
  9. Weedmaps listings, compiled by Official Cannabis, Weedmaps flower menu snapshot, 27 US markets, Oct 4, 2026. Accessed Oct 4, 2026. Latest capture Oct 4, 2026.