Bubba Kush Strain: Heavy, Gassy, Settling, and the CBD Version ARC Farms Grows
ARC Farms is proud to offer Bubba Kush, one of the best-known indica names in the country. The strain dates from the late 1990s, when, by its breeder's account, an OG Kush crossed with an indica obtained in New Orleans. It is known for a heavy, settling character and a sweet, hashy flavor over earth and fuel; on Leafly, where the history and reviews below come from, it carries more than 3,600 ratings.
The Bubba Kush ARC Farms grows in Tucson, Arizona is CBD hemp: 12.61% CBD and 0.13% total THC, below the 0.3% delta-9 THC line. It keeps the name, the gassy Kush-family nose and the end-of-day character, without the high. This guide covers where the strain came from, what it is like, and how ARC Farms grows it.
What Kind of Strain Is Bubba Kush?
Bubba Kush is an indica through and through: the strain people name when they mean a heavy evening. Its build suggests Afghani descent, though its genetic origins are not certain, and it belongs to the Kush family through OG Kush, one of its parents.
The ARC Farms Bubba Kush is an indica as well, one of two the farm grows. The other is Legendary OG, and together they make up the farm's Rest group.
Where Bubba Kush Comes From
The story behind the name is a breeder's story, and most of it is told by the breeder. Bubba Kush emerged just after 1996, when an OG Kush pollinated an unknown indica obtained in New Orleans; the mother plant is said to have been Northern Lights. The origin is recorded as uncertain, so the parentage beyond OG Kush is not settled.
What is settled is what came after. Bubba Kush went on to parent generations of newer strains, Kush Mints among them and, later, Wedding Cake, which is how a 1990s indica is still on strain menus thirty years on.
Pre-98 Bubba Kush
Anyone reading about Bubba Kush meets the name Pre-98 Bubba Kush sooner or later. It is a separate strain, listed on its own, also an indica and from the same late-1990s era, with the same coffee, earthy and pungent flavors and a consistent heavy body sensation that has kept it a favorite for more than a decade. The ARC Farms strain is Bubba Kush.
What Bubba Kush Smells and Tastes Like
Open the jar and the fuel arrives first. Reviewers of the original strain list its flavors as coffee, earthy and pungent, and describe sweet hashish flavors with subtle notes of chocolate and coffee on the exhale.
The ARC Farms Bubba Kush is rich and fuel-forward, with resin and earth underneath: the pungent, gassy side of the Kush family. Its product page lists the aroma as gas, resin and earthy. The coffee and chocolate notes belong to reviews of the original strain; the ARC Farms plant leans toward the fuel and the earth.
Bubba Kush Effects
Bubba Kush is for the end of the day. Reviewers of the original strain list sleepy, relaxed and hungry as its most reported effects and come back to its heavy, settling character; those reviews describe the THC strain, which tests at about 17% THC.
Customers who buy the ARC Farms Bubba Kush describe deep relaxation and rest, and call it reliable at the end of the day, when the stress of it needs somewhere to go. ARC Farms places it in the Rest group on the effects page, with Legendary OG, and customers in that group tend to reach for those strains in the evening. More on evening use is on the sleep page and the relaxation page. If you have not tried CBD hemp flower before, start with a small amount.
How ARC Farms Grows Bubba Kush
The ARC Farms Bubba Kush was chosen before it was grown. It came out of a pheno-hunt of more than 450 plants, in which one plant was selected for resin production, and the plant that won grows dense buds.
The care shows in the steps between the greenhouse and the jar, most of them done by hand. The flower is greenhouse-grown under natural sunlight in Tucson, in climate-controlled light deprivation greenhouses, in regenerative living soil with organic inputs and no synthetic salts or harmful sprays. After harvest, it is hang-dried in cold, dark rooms, then carefully hand-trimmed. The 7 g and larger sizes ship in Grove TerpLoc humidity-controlled bags, which hold the flower at the humidity it was packed at.
Every figure comes from third-party testing and is on the product page. Total THC counts delta-9 THC together with THCA, the acid form that turns into delta-9 THC when heated; the guide to reading a hemp COA explains each line of a lab report. Each harvest is a new crop, so the figures can shift a little from one harvest to the next, and the product page carries the current ones.
Does CBD Bubba Kush Get You High?
No, and that is the point of growing it as hemp. The ARC Farms Bubba Kush tests at 0.13% total THC, where the original strain tests at about 17%. It is a CBD strain: bred to produce CBD in place of THC, grown and tested as hemp.
CBD does not produce the high that THC does. The World Health Organization's 2018 review of cannabidiol found that "even high doses of oral CBD do not cause THC-like effects."1
Full-spectrum hemp flower does carry trace THC, and a drug test looks for THC, so anyone who is tested should not assume a pass. The support page has more.
1. World Health Organization, Cannabidiol (CBD) Critical Review Report, Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, Fortieth Meeting, Geneva, June 2018. ↩
Strains Like Bubba Kush
If the evening character is what draws you, there is a second strain to look at. Legendary OG is the farm's other indica and the other strain in the Rest group, with an earthy, pine and fuel aroma; the pine gives it a cleaner, greener nose, and it tests higher in CBD, at 14.42%. Customers describe deep body calm and a grounded ease.
The CBD strains page compares all six side by side: type, CBD and THC figures, aroma and effect group.
Shipping
ARC Farms ships Bubba Kush from Tucson by USPS, and orders arrive in 3 to 5 business days. Flower cannot ship to 19 states, which restrict smokable hemp flower under their own rules: California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. The list changes when a state's rule changes, and the current list is on the shipping page.
FAQ
Is Bubba Kush indica or sativa?
Indica. The original strain is an indica, and so is the CBD hemp Bubba Kush ARC Farms grows.
What does Bubba Kush taste like?
Sweet and hashy, with notes of coffee and chocolate, by reviewers' accounts of the original; its listed flavors are coffee, earthy and pungent. The ARC Farms version is fuel-forward, with resin and earth underneath.
Is Bubba Kush good for sleep?
Customers who buy the ARC Farms Bubba Kush describe deep relaxation and rest and use it at the end of the day, and ARC Farms places it in its Rest group. The sleep page has more on how customers use CBD hemp flower in the evening.
Does CBD Bubba Kush get you high?
No. The ARC Farms Bubba Kush tests at 0.13% total THC and below 0.3% delta-9 THC, and CBD does not produce intoxication.
What is Pre-98 Bubba Kush?
A separate indica from the same late-1990s era, with coffee, earthy and pungent flavors and a heavy body character. ARC Farms grows Bubba Kush.
Where can I buy Bubba Kush CBD flower?
On the Bubba Kush product page, in sizes from a 3.5 g jar to a 1 oz bag, shipped from Tucson to every state ARC Farms can ship flower to. The flower collection page has all six strains.