Mephisto's Wedding

Good first week for the Mephisto's Wedding. She sprouted in the 5 gallon fabric pot with no issues and is growing just fine. Just watering as needed at 6.5 ph. I don't expect her to get hungry anytime soon but I still have to work out a feeding schedule for both top dressing and tea.

Good growth in the second week which is exactly what I'm looking for. Still just giving ph'd water and expect to do so for the next few weeks.

Another good week of growth. It seems like in the last few days shes taken on a slight nitrogen toxicity. Look at the bottom leaves turn dark green and spread up the plant with a slight clawing on the tips that is typical of such toxicities. I've read that this variety is prone to N toxicity but I wouldn't have thought that my soil mix (50% Happy Frog, 50% Ocean Forest) would be hot enough to actually cause it. I'm not too concerned as the growth rate is still good and I don't plan on flushing. Shes a stout girl so I've risen the light from its original position to about 24 inches above the canopy. I want her to get a bit more height to make training easier and I plan on training sometime next week. I really, REALLY hate LSTing so I'll probably only tie down the main stem and then train the branches through the SCROG net. Hopefully I can get an even canopy this way without having to deal with the pain of training literally each branch. The N toxicity has thrown off my impromptu feeding schedule. I originally thought that she would need feeding starting around week 3-4 but I don't want to give her the 4-6-2 all purpose if she has an abundance of N. I know it takes awhile for dry amendments to work and they're hard to burn plants with but this is my first run with organic nutrients so bare with me until I figure it out. I'm just going to go by gut feeling and hold off on feeding for another week or two. So far the plan is to get in at least two feedings (and maybe some teas) over the grow since shes an 11-12 week strain. The idea is to get some 4-6-2 and 0-11-0 right before flower and then increase the ratio of 0-11-0 later in flower. Hopefully that will be enough nutes with the Ocean Forest to get her over the finish line at 11-12 weeks without any serious deficiencies.

Week 4 of the devils marriage. She's grown a bit and started preflowing with pistils growing around day 22/23. Now at day 28 she is in full flowering as seen with the node sites filling with pistils. Over the first few days of this week during preflower she has developed a very pungent smell, so much so that it reeked up my entire growing space. The carbon filter is in there now but the smell grows by the day. As you can see she has filled out just slightly. On day 25 I tied the main branch down to the side of the pot and on day 27 I hung up the SCROG net to train her branches. I think she will fill the net nicely over the next few weeks but I have to admit I don't think she's going to be able to fill as much as I would like. I chalk this up to genetics, but also my own error. I should have kept the light way farther away from her canopy to promote longer branch growth and I should have trained the main branch down like a week before I did. You can tell that she is a stout girl and she's going to need some serious SCROG work to open her up a little bit more. Regardless she still looks good. Good growth, nice green leaves, no deficiencies or abnormalities. She is on track and hopefully she stays that way. On day 28 I fed her some nutes. 1 TBSP/G of All Purpose, 1 TBSP/G of Seabird Guano, 1 TBSP/G of Kelp Meal, a little bit of Azomite, and 1 Cup of generic Earth Worm Castings. She isn't showing any signs of deficiency but since dry amendments aren't nutrient available to the plant immediately (and its hard to burn your plants with) I thought I would give her a preliminary feeding going right into flower. I plan on feeding every two-three weeks and also compost tea two or three times.

DISASTER has struck in the tent. On day 30 I've snapped the main stem trying to tuck it back under the net. Staked and taped it to see if it will heal properly. As of day 35 it looks like its going to be okay. I'm not going to be training the branches under the net anymore as the branches are too brittle. Definitely don't recommend SCROG for autos that have already began flowering. Other than that, fed some worm casting tea on day 35.

Good growth through the second week of flower, around 3 inches in the last 7 days. As you can see there are trichomes developing on the leaves and the pistils are getting fat. You may also be able to see some very minor purpling on the leaves. It seems as if the catastrophic main stem break last week was really no big deal as the break has seemed to heal/healing up. Its almost like it never even happened which is a huge relief. I tried to get a good picture of the wound and it doesn't look 100% so I'm going to handle her with care. I'm expecting her to continue to stretch and for her tops to get heavy. Will probably put up a second scrog net just to support the heaviest tops sometime down the line. I've also come across what looks like very minor burnt tips (and still really dark green color) on some of the new foliage which makes me believe I fed her the dry amendments a bit too early. This is making me feel like I need to hold off on more applications of the nutrients for awhile, at least until the burnt tips stop. I should probably defoliate. Some of the bottom leaves are touching the soil and some of the top leaves are blocking out light from the bud sites. I'm reluctant to do it though and feel as if I should just let her finish without the defoliation because I don't want to stress her too much. I think she could handle it but I may just keep all the leaves on. Other than that I've been tucking as many leaves as I can underneath the net. Oh, and the stank is absolutely ridiculous now. She smells like a half pound plant which is awesome. I hope my carbon filter lasts.

No further vertical growth. It seems like the plant is putting all its resources into bud development now. Always impressed by how fast autoperiods flower and chunk up. She continues to put off pistils and calyx development is showing with good trichome production. As you can see the pistils are maturing and changing color to a nice bright orange with a good amount of the fan leaves and sugar leaves displaying purpling all over the plant. Despite the burnt tips it seems that the plant needs nutrients as the bottom fan leaves are starting to yellow and fade. I'm going to assume this is the issue as my PH is fine. Took off a few of the dead leaves at the bottom this week. Will probably feed her this week and also maybe give her a compost tea. I also want to pop two more photoperiods sometime in the next two weeks as I want to get started on them before the Mephisto's Wedding is done.

Her buds are bulking up just fine. Alot of the lower fan leaves are dying off but leaves towards the top are nice and healthy. As you can see many of the leaves have now turned purple including the sugar leaves. The buds are starting to really frost up and display wonderful colors. About half of the pistils have turned orange but she continues to put off newer pistils which is a sign she still has some time left before harvest. Outside temperatures have dropped rapidly in the last week. I'm getting around 73-74f during lights on and about 63f lights off. I'm also getting very low humidity during lights on at around 33% RH. Not too sure if this is cause for concern as I've always had an issue with too much humidity in late flower. I've purchased a whole new tent and equipment (AC Infinity 3x3, Mars Hydro FC-E3000, Controller 69 etc) which I will be using as my flower tent. I want to move the Mephisto's Wedding to the new tent (and start up 2 photoperiods in the old veg tent) but I am not sure how feasible it is. It will probably be easy considering the SCROG net isn't really doing anything except supporting the buds and holding tucked fan leaves beneath it so hopefully moving it isn't an issue. I fed her dry amendments this week in response to the yellowing and dying leaves at the bottom. I think its been around 3 weeks since the last top dress and compost tea so it was about time for me to feed anyway. I will be feeding her a compost tea tomorrow (3 gallon bucket, 2 cups of castings, i tbsp of Kelp meal, 1 tbsp of All Purpose, 1 tbsp of molasses). I only expect her to yield around 2 ounces from the look of her. Not the biggest auto yield but its within the expected range Mephisto states on their webpage. I guess it all depends on how fat the colas get until around 74-86 days. Who knows, she might be dense AF and give me a better yield than I expect. Its good to be cautiously optimistic and set realistic goal though. See you all in the next 3-4 weeks for the last stretch :D.

I got the new tent and equipment in this week. Set everything up and moved the plant to the new tent. Since the SCROG wasn't doing much but supporting the branches and keeping leaves tucked it was pretty easy to just remove the net and move her. The rate of leaf loss has slowed considerably and her buds are chunking up nicely. Some of the lower branches unfortunately will only yield small baby nugs but a good amount of the branches will be a nice size. Normally I would lollipop and get rid off all of the lower growth in the first few weeks of flower but I didn't want to stress her. The new set up is dope. Let me just say AC Infinity really kills it and I could not be happier with everything I got. The tent is high quality; it has brighter mylar than my coolgrows, its thicker and much sturdier. The poles are heavy duty and the zippers are a dream. No joke some of the smoothest and nicest zippers I've ever used. I've got the controller 69 hooked up with the oscillating clip fan, t6 inline fan, and the FC-E3000. I made sure to order the rj11/12 converter to make the light work with the controller and it works very well. I've got my temp/humidity control and light cycle all set up on the controller. The only gripe I have with everything is that despite the quality of the tent, it still has a few minor light leaks, but they're pinhole sized and honestly I couldn't notice them when I zipped myself up inside the tent so nbd. I'm glad to have an actually really nice setup that I can use as my flower tent. The old tent will be used for veg. I'm germinating a Bubba Kush and Grape Diamonds in there to get a head start on veg.

Finally reaching the final weeks of the Mephisto's Wedding. As you can see at day 70 her colas are starting to look more like the images mephisto uses for this cultivar on their webpage. Her pistils are a beautiful deep and vibrant orange and the thrichomes are stacking so hard all over her. She is incredibly frosty and the purpling of the leaves and calyxes shines through the thrichs to give off a beautiful purple/pink glow on the stalks. Looking through the (shitty usb) microscope I can see the tops buds are just about ready with a majority of the thrichs being cloudy with some clear and some amber and her bottom buds are half clear half cloudy. She smells extremely dank. I've been careful to not touch the buds too much but on an accidental touch I definitely smelled a heavy grape. Looking forward to seeing what she smells/tastes like after a good dry and cure. I'm going to let her go for another week and see where she is. I definitely could harvest her now and have a good quality end product but she's still a bit immature at the bottom. I also think she may be able to chunk up just a slight bit more. Just feeding water until chop day comes. See you in a week boys!

Welp, looks like shes ready to chop. Got a fungus nat infestation in the last few days of flower as evidenced by the sticky traps and diatomaceous earth. It wasn't a bad infestation but I wanted to make sure I was able to keep it under control hence the usage of the diatomaceous earth. I also spotted a nanner on one of the colas which is pretty strange considering she hasn't been stressed at all and honestly could have gone a bit longer before chop. That being said she is definitely ready. All of the trichs on the top nugs are cloudy and amber with the bottom nugs being mostly cloudy. The colas smell like grape and gas and I'm really excited to smoke her after she dries. I really don't know how much she is going to yield, although if I had to take a guess, its probably around 2 ounces. It may be more though because alot of the bottom nugs are actually high quality and dense. I'm usually not very excited about harvest because I really hate being put in trim jail but it looks like trimming is going to be really easy and fast. I chopped all of her individual branches and hung them in the tent with the inline fan on setting 1 and the clip fan on setting 1 at the bottom of the tent. I also put the humidifier in there to try to keep the humidity consistent throughout the drying process. In my last setup I was limited to around a 7 day dry but hopefully we can extend the drying process by at least another 3 or so days. Aiming for 60F and 60%RH and currently getting 63F and 54%RH in the tent. In the next week or so when she is dry and ready to go in jars I'll post the harvest update. In it I'll condense everything that happened and give my impressions on the grow as well as the smoke report. I'll also detail what I think growers should do if they want to get the best results for this particular cultivar from Mephisto. I'm really looking forward to getting these nugs in my jars. See you guys in a week or so!

Harvest cometh! Chopped on the 9th and dry trimmed/jarred on the 17th for a total of 8 days drying and 65 (2.3 Oz) grams in my jars. Lets begin the post harvest analysis! The list of mistakes I've posted below makes it look like the grow was a failure, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. The grow turned out great and the final product is absolutely wonderful. Hands down frostiest and prettiest nugs I've grown. These are just minor nitpicks to show you that you can achieve better results than I by not falling into my mistakes. Hopefully I can give you some good tips on how to nail it even better. 😀 (TL;DR) Here are my biggest mistakes: 1. Snapping the main stem in week 5. 2. Choosing a soil mix that caused nitrogen toxicity in early veg. 3. Having the light a bit too close to the plant in early veg. 4. Too much topdress at the wrong time. 5. Not LSTing more and earlier in early veg. Obviously don't snap your stems dummy! However my goal at the time was to avoid LSTing by just training the branches under the scrog net. I underestimated how fast auto's kick into flower and the stems became brittle quickly and I accidentally snapped the main stem. With a little bit of support and tape, she healed up just fine. Surviving a major stem break in the beginning of flower really goes to show you how strong and resilient these plants can be. That being said, most likely the stem break resulted in a lower potential yield. Don't break your stems! Another thing that probably hurt me on yield was the nitrogen toxicity in veg. She is already a stout and short girl with the breeders themselves stating as such on their webpage, so you should do your best to have her stretch as much as possible by having the light placed as far as it can be within acceptable limits in early veg. Since she also took on a bit of a nitrogen toxicity, I would recommend growing her in Coco or a very light soil mix IF you want to avoid N toxicity and completely maximize yield. The mix I used was 50/50 FF Happy Frog and Ocean forest (which is imo not a heavy mix) so take that into consideration when choosing your grow medium. I would also recommend you LST her main branch very early in life, probably around week 2-3 as she is hard to work with when she starts flowering (last until day 25-30). Don't be a dummy like me and don't try to scrog her because you are lazy. Take the time to actually LST her branches down and you'll get a better result. If you decide to do dry amendments and compost tea like me, I suggest you feed starting at the beginning of flower every two weeks on the spot with half to a quarter of the recommend nutes to avoid N toxicity or nute burn. I'm not super ecstatic with the low yield as 11-12 weeks is a long time to devote to a plan that yields so little HOWEVER that is half my fault and also the bud is extremely high quality. As for the final product, its wonderful. Beautiful medium to small sized nugs with even the bottom nugs being dense and high quality. Dense and absolutely covered in frost. Bag appeal 10/10 hands down. Extremely pungent, one of the stankiest I've grown. Gassy and funky smell with grape and vanilla cream. Taste is extremely similar to Wedding Cake but with a gassy, funky initial taste and a bit of grape on the exhale. Potency is definitely there and the high is a pleasant indica leaning high. I'm sure the flavors and effects will change as it cures so I may be back to update this at a later date. Took two stars away only because of my preferences for taste/smell (doesn't taste/smell bad at all) and the small harvest. Mephisto is legit and serious business. Would recommend to others to grow (especially if you like wedding cake) and would grow again 8/10.👍