Mephisto Mangos and Mars

What a good start. My last Mango smile seedlings I accidentally let get too dry and die! So I'm going to be more careful with these girls. They've grown nicely and are fairly even with one another at the end of the week even though they sprouted at different times. They're getting some sunshine and some cfl light and trying to keep humidity up with cups on top. Cheers to healthy, vigorous growth.

Its been a good week. The plants seem to be growing at a normal rate? I'm always unsure about where auto's should be at what time. The one seedling is still clung to her shell, but as it's on a cotyledon I don't think its a big deal. One of the negative things happening was when I'd go to water them they would shift and a couple times I had to readjust them and push their soil back down...so perhaps they aren't rooted deep enough? Maybe I didn't put their seed fair enough down on initial planting? I went at least a knuckle deep, but these are one of the small learning adjustments I'll need to make over time. Otherwise I must need to water even more gently. Occasionally I'll let them get some natural sun in the window when its bright and im sure they enjoy the warmth and moisture it brings. I also started to put them into the led lighting in the tent at the end of the week. Neither of these variances in light seemed to bother them and I'm hoping they'll get growing with more vigor now the light has intensified. I know the Mango Smiles are one of the longer growth period autos from Mephisto so perhaps they're right on track. Happy growing all.✌️

It's been a pretty easy week...started keeping them in the tent with the led light. But also letting them catch some rays in the window. I always think they love the sun and the warmth. For the most part they've evened out pretty nicely, I can't tell much difference between them anyway. I see their lowest leaves are discoloring slightly, which is to be expected. Another week or so and I'll transplant them to some final containers. As usual I'm kinda paranoid about ph devices. I feel like they go out way too often and ph can really cause a problem when its off. This pen happened to be off by basically a whole point...and unfortunately the difference between a ph of 6 and 7 is huge! Or 6 and 5. So remember to check you're stuff occasionally. Or find out a method that doesn't need as strict ph accuracy. I read up on "the @Mephisto Method" and they don't ph at all! But they do grow in all organic soil, and they use that as the way to buffer ph. I'm planning to attempt my next run imitating their process as accurately as I can and see how it compares.

Decent growing this week. Definitely time for transplanting though. I always have a hard time knowing when to transplant an autoflower...or to do it at all. What does everyone else do? Transplant or no transplant? The plants didn't seem to be showing any signs of flowering yet at the beginning of the week, so hopefully all will be well. As far as I know the Mango Smiles have a slightly longer lifespan. I decided to let one grow and finish outdoors. It got a transplant mix of ocean forest and seedling mix for soil. I hope the seedling mix will help it transition quicker and then grow into the more nutrient rich fox farm below. The indoor plant will stay and get the new full spectrum led lighting from the SP6500 from Mars Hydro. I'm very excited to see how the plants handle the F.S versus the blurple lights I've used for so long. It also got a transplant this week, and didn't handle it as well as the outdoor...I'm not sure why. 3 gallon smart pot, and ocean forest soil. The photo was awful and I'm sorry for that. Hopefully she'll turn around in the next day or so. That plant started showing the first signs of pistils, so maybe that was part of the problem...flowering is attempting to start. Exciting things are always happening. I'm just gonna have to keep growing and adapt along the way. Happy growing everyone. ✌️

This was the last week in the vegetative cycle. They started flowering the last two days of this week. WOW does it come quick with auto flowers! I'm a little disappointed as I thought the Mango Smiles had longer lifespans and hoped they'd recover and thrive once they had some final containers. However, I transplanted and they started Flowering the very next week. So naturally got a bit stunted. Fortunately I did talk with some good people I know who've grown many autos and the next attempt I won't transplant; just germinate and straight into the final container. Mephisto does describe the "Autoflower Learning Curve" and now more than ever I believe that's true. They really are like ticking time bombs and if everything isn't going good from the beginning, there's usually drastic negatives that can happen to massively lower the plants health/vitality/yields. My new light showed up and I hoped it would possibly help with the growth on this plant. I'll have to monitor plants closely for a change with the new strength and spectrum. The SP 6500 by Mars hydro is big and a bit hard for me to hang on my own, but I managed to set it up without dropping it. The light is absolutely gorgeous and has an equally beautiful light spectrum. How I stayed with the blurple leds for so long is crazy. The full spectrum led is the way to go 100%. I'm currently running the light around 45% strength and will bump it up slowly as needed. I love that it dims and you get decent photos without pulling them out or by Turning the lights off.

Hey everyone. So were officially on the 2nd week of flowering..... and unfortunately I'm not happy with these plants. Which of course is usually my own fault when that happens. I think the late transplant really gave them a mean shock and with autoflowers there's just not a lot of room to bounce back and get healthy again. If you grow photoperiod plants you can keep them in veg as long as you have to...indefinitely if you want! But Autos...No. there's only so many days in a cycle, so have everything dialed in or the result often isn't pretty. With the late transplant I assume they have enough nutrients to finish their life and yet here we are with discolored leaves and a stunted plant. I'm thinking the ph must have went out of the right range again and contributed to the problems. The question is did it go too high or too low? Mephisto says that "they never Ph! Ever! Not with plain water or feed water " so it may be that I would've been better off either A) not ph-ing at all. Or B) make sure your ph is accurate, don't have it all over the place. The only good thing I'm feeling right now is towards my new gear. Wow the zippers on this new tent are so smooth! They slide like butter! My old tent it was a nightmare trying to open or close it! As for LED grow lights, thank God they've made it so far and advanced so much. I don't know how I let myself struggle with a purple colored light for so long! The color spectrum on this SP6500 is just gorgeous, I can actually see if my plants look good or bad without having to pull them out every single day! So my advice....if you're still using a purple led...UPGRADE! YOU DESERVE IT! And so do your plants. Lol Happy growing all. ✌️

Grow setup: Mars Hydro SP6500 led, 2x4 tent, Smart Pot fabric pots. Wow 7 weeks already? Where does the time go? Well.....I've realized I have a small problem with my diary keeping abilities at the moment. I still can't smell after getting Covid months ago! It sucks! I can't say whether my place smells like nothing or if there's a fresh growing weed smell coming in. So frustrating, so I'm gonna leave my smell section blank for now....and who knows at harvest, I can't even smell fire or vinegar, let alone subtle cannabis hints like citrus or fruity. But as for the growing this week, things are a bit better. I'm realizing how much more often I'm needing to check and manage my ph equipment. Having the calibration go off two times in a single grow was irritating. I'm gonna try to hopefully keep that more controlled and also maintain a more thorough feeding schedule. I think setting some reminders would be a good idea, just to help me keep track of the weeks I'm on and when I want to feed specific nutrients. Both plants got small defoliation to their bottoms. Since I put one plant indoors and one outdoors its been so interesting to see their subtle differences. The indoor plant while more affected by ph differences, has gotten more bulky and heavy. The outside plant stayed smaller because its like 100 degrees, but doesn't seem to be affected by ph nor does it need additional feeding. Also its pistils have started to change color quicker than the indoor plant. I love seeing same strain/age plants in different environments and how they grow differently, its fascinating! Good luck to anyone having struggles, and happy growing to us all! 💚

Absolutely Fascinating! I cannot get over how significantly different these two plants are. I can only imagine if I had not needed to transplant or done it earlier and given them both less stress what they would've been like. Typically I usually see plants that are outdoors tend to get bigger if given the time, root space and lack of stresses; whereas indoor plants still have the capacity to get fairly large, but definitely have more dense buds. Even with the significant stunting of these plants its going to be so interesting to see what their final weights are like. I'm sure the indoor will have a higher weight even with the damage to the leaves and what not. I defoliated some useless stuff off the bottoms and am occasionally plucking any leaves that have gotten too damaged to where I don't think they're an asset anymore. Pistils are starting to mature, and we're about 55-58 days in. The Mango Smiles can Typically go anywhere from 70-95 days for harvest, so there's still a good amount of time to go before the chop. Happy 4th of July to all the growers in the U.S.A Mars Hydro SP6500 is still only being powered at less than 50% and I'm not seeing any negative reactions, burning stretching etc.

WHOO! God Bless the Sense of Smell! This has been so hard not being able to smell anything. I still can't smell much, but if its very strong and my nose gets very close, then it can pick up subtle scents. And wow I can't smell these plants as a whole, but if I touch them and get a bit of oil on my hand it is an incredibly Mango/fruity smell! Yum The week has been about the same.... The indoor plant had gotten discolored leaves from varying ph's and probably could've used stronger feeding; but it has beautifully dense buds that are slowly maturing and getting colored pistils and trichomes. I've also been fortunate to not need to kick up my Mars Hydro light to full capacity, 45% has done a decent job at providing what a light should. I'll experiment with higher powers as I get more comfortable with it. The outdoor plant...while generally more healthy looking due to the tremendous help of mother nature and having a ph that is higher but at least consistent. It's bud is much smaller, less dense, and of course has a small presence of outdoor crawlers, mainly a small spider with a couple small webs and a flying gnat like bug or two. We're definitely getting down to the last several weeks so we'll see how things weigh out and smoke out in the end. Mars Hydro SP6500, and a 4x2x6 tent.

Getting cleaned up and ready for harvest soon. Any bulky or damaged leaves i decided to take off. Overall its maturing nicely. The pistils are changing colors and the smell must be strong but I can only smell a bit of it. However it's very Mango fruity what I can smell! And wow oily! Mars Hydro grow tent, and the SP6500 led is working great. I'm still only running power around 45%.

A great week. The end is definitely near close for both the indoor and outdoor. While their plant structure and leaf appearance is completely different...they are at least fairly close in color of trichomes and development of pistils. The outdoor might be slightly ahead, but thats not necessarily a good thing. With the indoor Mango Smile being a tad behind its gotten the opportunity to get twice as dense and a slightly bigger shape. Mephisto has their time-line down at around 75 to 90 days to mature. Its great that both plants have made it past day 70 and are still good to keep going a bit longer. I'm planning on cutting the outdoor plant earlier than the indoor as the one still has some white pistils on the lower buds and I think that one will take just a little longer to fully mature. Its been fascinating seeing the difference between an indoor and outdoor version of same strain autos. I wish I could've kept the inside plant a little healthier with its leaves to get a truly accurate view on them, and definitely cut out and any transplanting on the next comparison. I'll continue giving them just plain water into the next week and see where they are on harvest time. Its been amazing being able to get decent photos out of my tent with a full spectrum led that puts off a "white colored light" versus the "blurple" lighting i had gotten so used to. I don't think I'll ever go back to those red/purple lights again unless I absolutely have to! I'm still running the SP6500 from Mars Hydro at the 40%-50% range and typically have left it down at 40% without seeing any stretching or other negative effects. Overall I'm pretty thrilled with this new light. Happy growing everyone, I hope all your harvests have been incredible this season so far. ✌️

The last week.....week 12. Both plants have made it into the 80+ days. For Mango Smiles you're looking for somewhere in the 75-95 range. But really its all about what the plants want or what I want! And I think they're both finishing beautifully. A bit smaller than I'd hoped but still a good learning lesson. Now with some solid advice from a few good friends who've been much better with autoflowers than me, I think my next attempt will be much smoother. *Rule #1 no more transplanting my autos! The Outdoor temps have started to slowly decrease, not by much but 89 is much nicer than 104. Pretty soon it'll be getting chilly at night versus nice and warm. But there may still be time for one more round. The indoor plant grown with a Mars Hydro SP6500 and 4x2x6 grow tent got much bigger and far more dense than the outdoor plant. Both plants have had good trichome density(something I almost always get with Mephisto). They've also got the most amazing fruity smell, while I can't smell perfectly it is strong enough that when I touch the buds I can smell a very distinct fruity mango scent and can only imagine how it must be for an undamaged nose. I've continued to just give them plain water and they should have a very clean taste once they're dried and cured. I didn't use a very heavy regimen of nutrients on these plants and even less so on the outdoor plant. Why the outdoor plant handled the high ph so well and the indoor didn't, I'm not sure. Perhaps nature gives something the indoor atmosphere can't, or my hose water is different than my inside tap(I doubt it). I wish I could find out, and mostly I wish to find out how to get through grows without needing to ph at all or very little. Cheers to everyone and their grows right now. Happy summer. ✌️ P.S anyone who enjoys Mephisto genetics they've started up "Mephisto Mondays" again. So each week several strains are available.

Overall I was happy with the Mango Smiles, because I know that the negatives were down to my ineptitudes rather than the seeds or plants. Its obvious now not to transplant most autos, that indoor plants need proper ph'ing done in most cases, and that outdoor usually turns out much more light and airy. Throughout this grow I still hadn't recovered my sense of smell from Covid...and its still not great. However if I squeezed a bud towards the end it had a very distinct Mango smell and that says something incredible if a broken nose can detect that. Obviously there's a lot of things I would do differently if I could go back, but I can just sprout some new Mangos and give it another go. As for Grow Diaries, they've made it so easy to track your grow. As long as you've have plants and can make observations, you can make well informed diaries here and get good data for others or yourself. This sites done a lot in the several years I've been here now, some of it great and some of it isn't my favorite....but expansion and growth aren't always 100% perfect but it is necessary to keep moving forward. The only thing about this grow that pisses me off and really it's every grow, is how much weight you lose between cut and cured. From it's wet to dry weight i lost about half, maybe a little over, and then after I trim I lose a bit more.....Fortunately with Mephisto I rarely have to do much trimming so thats one thing I'll always love about them. Anyone who likes Mephisto seeds or are looking for a good breeder of autoflowers I'd definitely recommend them. They're great to smoke, trim, and grow(most of the time). I think the Mango Smile would be a great pick for anyone who likes growing a heavier sativa strain and under good conditions it should be a fairly large auto with a slightly longer growth period. As for my new experience with Mars Hydro, Wow! What an amazing feeling it was not to have to change the lighting every time I take pictures! To be free of that awful purple light is amazing! I'm absolutely loving the full spectrum led, and the new tent has given me an extra foot of height in my growing space which normally is very much needed. Both products seem strong, sturdy and good quality. I'm very happy they sought me out. Good luck and happy growing to everyone. Enjoy a good smoke today and get out and grow something! Thanks for all the love and support. E.G