First Grow with Mephisto Autos

Just harvested, so more to come on the strain itself once I get a chance to smoke her. This was my first grow, so take it with a grain of salt. She had root rot early on, and she got it early than the CDLC that was sharing a reservoir with her. She healed more slowly, and throughout the grow her roots were more stained and smaller than her CDLC partner. She would wilt at times with water and temp changes while the CDLC didn't notice a thing. As a beginner, I can't say for sure ... but either she's a bit finicky, or the CLDC is a super stable champ. One way or the other, she sustained through a long list of mistakes I made: 1. Didn't top her. 2. Accidentally broke off her main cola several weeks into flower 3. Let her get into the lights ... like ... within 6 inches. Enough to burn the tip of her main cola. 4. I trimmed flowering nodes late into the flower (trying to cut future larf). 5. Used shitty plant ties that dug into her branches She never showed any male flowers, she never stopped thriving, and at the end of the day she produced 850g wet weight. Despite my best efforts, she just never slowed down. I hope to get my hands on these genetics again so that I can grow her right and see what I can truly get with even a little bit skill! She smelled lovely throughout her flower. Trimming her was addictive, as the juice left my hands smelling like skittles for hours. Later in her flower, she became more pungent ... maybe a little cheesy? Her trichome progression was confusing for me, but maybe it was the stress and distance from the lights? At no point could I say that all were cloudy, but there were large patches of the plants where that was true. The ambering was similarly patchy. Where they showed up, they spread. _rapidly_ in week 11. I want a nice energetic smoke, so I was attempting to get as few ambers as possible. Growers beware ... her ambers are clear and you have about 2 weeks once they start showing up on the sugars. The 850g wet haul completely overloaded my standard size Herbsnow dryer. I had to remove one tray so I could fit the 4 fat colas, and stuff the other 3 layers to the max and was left with enough to carpet about 4 sq feet of cardboard box. Damn! I can't wait for the dry and cure, and I'll surely be back to update these notes! ***UPDATE 1*** Dried weight overall ended up at ~170g of which I kept 68g for smoking. The other 100g, I soaked in alcohol and then distilled down to about 1 ounce of dark brown nasty decarbed "tincture." I use those quotes because this first attempt was pretty bad, but it works. I dried the nugs in a MyHerbsNow dryer, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. They dried way too quickly... around 3 days to be crispy on the outside. I allowed them to puff back out just sitting in an open jar, and I've been doing the curing thing ever since (about 1.5wks curing, 2 weeks since harvest). Taste test still isn't on the table, as the smoke is too harsh. I'll update again in maybe 2-4 weeks once it's truly smokable.