Double Grape Auto - Mephisto Genetics

Planted June 23rd, sprouted June 28th. Day 0: Planted seed directly into soil (Fox Farms Ocean Forest) and lightly watered around the center of the pot. Plant sprouted in 5 days. I'm using a 5 gallon smart pot. Day 3: Looking healthy, she's starting to grow her first set of fan leaves. Day 5: All good, watering when necessary just a small amount at a time till her roots get set.

Day 8: She's growing a bit lopsided which I'm assuming is because one of my lights (the one she's leaning towards) is closer to her than the other. I've since propped her up with a pipe cleaner. She's doing great so far. Day 10: Watered with tap water Ph'd to around 6.5. Day 12: Look at the difference between day 10 and 12...she is growing crazy fast now. I may be able to start LST sooner than next week which was my target. Day 14: This plant is going to be big (I hope) just judging by how fast she's growing. I can't believe how much of a difference 2 days makes. Decided to start LST today because she can handle it. I plan on being a bit more aggressive with the LST this time around compared to my Sour Crack run.

Day 16: Continuing LST every day as well as some minor leaf tucking to get those lower nodes some more light. I noticed that she popped her first pistils today as well. Day 18: Think I burned her just a tiny bit with my lights so I moved them up a couple inches. I've gone ahead and tied her down pretty aggressively as I'm really trying to go for an even canopy this time. My last grow ended up with a lot of the middle-canopy buds not being as big as the outer canopy buds. Also gave her a hefty watering today as she needed it. Day 19: Still responding great to the LST, I'm just adapting to how she's growing and figuring out how to best manage it.

Day 22: Managed the LST a bit more and really focused on tying down the off shoots of the main stem so as to open the canopy as much as possible. Her fan leaves are huge! I will probably wait another week to start nutes because last time I was seeing a minor N tox in my plant. I think that was because I had started nutes on week 4 and the Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil still had some nutes left in it. Day 24: Still can't believe how easy and quickly this plant is growing. I've simply been watering when needed, increasing the amount of water each time. My last watering was last night which I gave her a full liter of PH'd tap water. It's also crazy how much leaf tucking can do for your plants in parallel with LST. I'm seeing more pistils pop up everywhere now too, very anxious to see how big she gets! Some of her fan leaves are bigger than my hand! Day 26: Ok so I just had a heart attack. I was adjusting the LST and ended up snapping the main stem. Luckily, it didn't fully detach and is hanging on by a thread. I was able to wrap some duct tape around the break and support it upright while it hopefully heals. Lesson learned I guess, be gentle with your plants. I will update in a few weeks to see how its recovered, but I plan to keep the duct tape on for the rest of the grow just to be safe. REALLY hoping this doesn't affect final yield. Day 27: I think we're going to be okay. The growth above the break on the main stem is drooping but I have faith. The rest of the plant seems to not even know what's going on because its starting to form its final canopy shape with the help of LST. Today I added a bunch of new pipe cleaners to pull the canopy apart (carefully, this time) and there will be plenty of tops even if the break doesn't heal. Day 28: As you can see from my picture, the rest of the plant is growing just fine. Tops are starting to stretch up and continue to grow.

Day 29: She is growing just fine and I think is starting to reattach herself to the main stem where I broke it. I'm hoping it won't affect yield, but seeing as the rest of the plant is acting like nothing ever happened I think she'll be ok. I've continued to adjust LST everyday and I plan to start feeding nutrients this week. Day 30: Fed her nutes for the first time. Going with 1/2 strength the recommended schedule from Fox Farms. Gave her 2 liters of nutes today and I plan to feed every other watering unless she shows some burn or toxicity. I also took off a bunch of fan leaves today to open up the canopy and tied down just about every top on the plant. Lastly, I took off the duct tape from the break, readjusted the branch so that there was a more even connection, and added some duct tape to hold it together. I also dropped a bit of honey in between the break point to try and glue the branches back together. I know I'm late in trying to reattach the stems but I'm hoping she will take hold. The growth above the break still looks healthy so I have hope! Other than that, the canopy shape is really starting to come together. I have what I like to describe as an orb of a canopy shape right now and as long as I keep adjusting LST, there will be no popcorn buds come harvest. Day 32: Removed the crutch support from the main stem that I snapped. The fibers that were still holding on managed to strengthen themselves and can now stand on their own. I am hoping now that with an open canopy, the main stem won't be too stunted to produce a fat bud like it should! Watered about 2L yesterday from the tap ph'd to around 6.5. I am going to feed probably tomorrow as she will need to be watered again. Going to go with the same 1/2 recommended strength mix from the FF Trio. Day 33: Fed nutrients this morning, no sign of toxicities yet so I am happy. I decided to skip the Grow Big nutes this time around to avoid the N tox that I observed last time. I think the combo of the FFOF soil and the use of Grow Big (high in N) caused it. This time I'm not seeing any sign that she doesn't like the nutes. I have to say I'm pretty proud of my LST job! The break is sturdy and the one flower site above the break seems to be doing okay right now. Buds are starting to develop.

Day 35: I was gone for the weekend so I gave her a healthy watering of plain PH'd tap water on Friday before I left and I came back to a jungle of a plant! I gave her another light haircut and adjusted my LST lines as well as fed 2 liters of the nutrient solution I've been feeding. She shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. We are in full on flower mode now. Day 37: All good here! She will need water tomorrow. Day 38: Fed nutrients today (2 liters total with 4mL of Big Bloom and 2.5mL of Tiger Bloom mixed in and ph'd down to ~6.5). Adjusted LST lines as usual. The buds are starting to form!

Day 42: Fed the same nutrient solution again today. I see some signs of leaf clawing so I may have to hold off on the nutes for a bit after this feeding. Day 43: Watered with tap water ph'd to 6.5 today and cut off a few more fan leaves to open the canopy. Standard day. Day 45: Fed nutes again today. I think the clawing I'm seeing on the lower branches is just the leaves dying off because they're kind of starting to spot and turn light green/light yellow. The top growth looks amazingly healthy.

Day 49: Just got back from a weekend trip which is why there's a gap between day 45 and 49. I got home and she was already starting to fade and her leaves were droopy (she was thirsty) but the buds are becoming super developed. Lots of orange pistils at this point and the smell is fruity. Day 51: Ok so clearly we have a problem which I realize now. I have not flushed once this entire grow and I've been feeding nutes for 3 weeks straight every other watering. I'm feeling pretty dumb right about now because I've always known that Fox Farms Trio is really salty and can easily buildup in soil. I think that's what we have going on here, a lockout. I gave her a gallon of water on Sunday when I got home before I knew that she needed to be flushed so right now I'm waiting for her to dry up again so I can give her a proper flush. Every day there are more yellow and dying leaves which is kind of disheartening seeing as the buds are shaping up to be beautiful already and she still has a few weeks left. I'm hoping after the flush she can bounce back a little before finishing up! Day 53: Flushed with around 15 gallons of water yesterday to try to dissipate some of the salt buildups in the soil and to reset the medium. I'm really hoping in a week or so that her growth is healthy. If everything looks healthy I plan to give her some nutes one last time to give her a final boost before she finishes up. Timing is tight but the buds look unaffected and I'm hoping they continue to grow.

Day 56: I think the flush is working because I am starting to notice some more green in the fan leaves and less of them becoming yellow as the days go by. She's almost dry, I'm thinking later today I will water with nutes one last time before using straight PH'd tap water for the rest of her life. I'm hoping the boost of nutes will spring her back into action a bit. The buds still seem to be fattening and the trichs are mostly cloudy with little amber. EDIT: I did end up feeding some nutes today which will be her last feeding. Day 57: Still going strong despite the nutrient lockout, decided to take some bud shots with the flash on to emphasize the frostiness Day 59: All good, I've been trimming off the obviously dead leaves from the nute lockout but I don't notice anymore yellowing as the days go by. I guess the flush officially worked. Hoping she's ready in 2 weeks or so. Day 62: All good, gave her 4L of water.

Day 63: Everythings going smooth now. I think the actual fade is starting since I'm starting to see some purpling around the fan leaves near the buds. The colors under normal light are awesome. Lots of green/orange/a slight purple-greyish color. The smell has permeated through my whole house and it wreaks lol. Day 66: Did a trichome check on some buds and I'm seeing about 90-95% cloudy and not much amber yet. Thinking of chopping on Monday of next week (5 days). Pleasantly surprised by the purpling during the start of her fade. Always wanted to grow an actual purple bud :) The pics don't show it that well yet but it looks like someone took a handful of purple sprinkles and threw them on the canopy. Day 67: Just gave her her last watering of her life! Still on track to chop in 4 more days. Very excited with how she turned out, and even more excited to chop her down and crack into this harvest!

Chopped on Day 70 (September 6th, 2020) 9/6/20: Hung her to dry after taking off most of her fan leaves. I decided to hang the whole plant this time around to see if it helps my dry quality. Will update with pictures soon. 9/12/20: Trimmed her up today after feeling that the nugs were crispy and dry. First couple days of dry we were experiencing a bit of a heat wave and high humidity levels (fluctuating from 60-75%). During the final days of drying we had rain and then it cooled off and dried out lowering my rh in the tent to around 50%. That crisped the nugs right up in 2 days and I decided it was time to pull her out and trim her up. The nugs were so incredibly sticky and smelled of chem. They are really dense despite their look especially the main cola nugs. Still smelling a bit like hay but I'm confident that the curing process will take care of that. I am curing with Boveda 58% rh packs in each jar and a hydrometer as well. Not going to test a nug until at least a week or two of curing or until I run out of Sour Crack lol. Will update with a smoke report. 9/28/20: So it's been just over 2 weeks of curing so far. When I first put the nugs in the jar, I was worried they were a bit too dry/crispy for what I was hoping for, but after 2 weeks of curing the nugs aren't as crackly sounding in my hands. I cured with Boveda 58% rh packs and mason jars as seen in the pictures. **SMOKE REPORT** 9/28/20 - 2 weeks of curing: The smell of this strain is a really unique one, or maybe the pheno that I got is. It smells fruity for sure but it has this gas smell to it that almost smells chemical but in a good way. I marked down tropical above because the combo of pungent fruit almost brings out a sweet cocktail aroma. After really thinking about it, I've never smelled weed with a scent quite like this one! The smoke was smooth in my freshly cleaned bong and I'm decently high. I feel pretty tired but I'm ready to do something like game or make music. I don't feel hungry (yet) but my throat is begging for a drink. I'm happy that I have now smoked my own home grown weed twice!