Giving Mango Sherbet Bag Seed a Whirl

New grower - this is my second plant, but first seed grow (first plant is a GSC clone I picked up a few months ago, still in veg because I was not using a strong enough light to send her into flower). Already made some mistakes with this one - I germinated using wet paper towel/ziploc bag method, then transferred the germinated seed into a small container. The sprout grew like crazy overnight - which is what made me realize I'd accidentally left it on the same 12 hour light cycle as my GSC plant that i'd been trying to send into flower. As it turns out, the extended darkness causes the sprout to stretch out overly much in search of any source of light. Knowing the container I'd chosen for the plant was way too small, I went out and got a new, bigger pot. Just a basic 500cc, cheap black plastic plant container. I added more of the Fox Farm light warrior seedling soil (extra light for extra airation) but provided an inch layer of the fox farm ocean forest i'll be fully switching it to later on the bottom first. I was able to make the transfer pretty quickly this morning before work, and was glad to have done it after seeing how much the root system had already grown. When I made the move I buried the stem a good portion of the way to reduce the height on the sprout - "start over" so to speak with it shorter - and moved the sprout under the T5 light, with about a foot of space between it and the light. After getting home and checking on it I saw the sprout had grown taller again with little to know change in size with the leaves, however they did become a darker shade of green. Worried that the sprout was still not getting enough light, I moved it until just a few inches away from bulb. After some research I realized the T5 light I'd gotten wasn't ideal for growing beyond the sprout stage (no tent, still waiting for it to arrive...) and ordered a 1000w LED light off amazon that I can switch to and hopefully start providing proper light.

10/05 I’m so friggin dumb sometimes. The sprout was still getting long, and I found a journal of someone who had been able to bend the stem into a knot. Of course I tried it myself, which ended up being a terrible mistake. It almost worked…and then it suddenly didn’t. I worked the stem until it was stretched into the right general shape – but the sprout was just a hair too short for knotting the stem and instead it cracked about a half to 2/3 through, on a low area by the dirt that I hadn’t really worked on enough. Between the weight and movement as I worked on the last stretch, I pushed it too far too fast. I panicked at first with trying to figure out what to do – my grow area is pretty clean, but still – after an injury like that, time was of the essence so the sprout didn’t get any bacteria in the crack and it didn’t start leaking too much plant blood, sending it into shock. In my panic my first thought was to use stakes to keep the plant upright and in place, pressing the stem wound on itself to try and stitch back together, but that leaves the problem of exposure to the air and inviting bacteria. And to be honest, I just didn’t think it would actually work. In the end, I figured my only real chance was to bury the sprout. Again. Which of course means re-potting for the third time in the week since it germinated, which let me just say this – if Mango Sherbet somehow survives this too, what a friggin trooper; for real. I buried the sprout up to just below the leaf growth with Ocean fox farm soil; putting it in a larger pot to turn the entire growth of stem up to this point into a root system and just try restarting again if Mango Sherbet can pull through. I’ll leave it under the T5 light, about an inch away from the leaves to try and curb further length until the leaves grow in more. Fingers Crossed. 10/06 Last night my new LED light grow light arrived, and I immediately set it up and put Mango Sherbert, a GSC clone, and a new seedling I’ll start a different journal for called Light Saber that just germinated two days ago. I left them under the T5 while I set up shop, and then when everything was ready I moved the plants to their new grow area (closet grow until I can set up my grow tent next week) and moved the outlet timer to the LED so the 17/7 light cycle I’ve got going on for the group is as unchanged as possible. I left it alone overnight, and checked in on the plants this morning before work. Mango Sherbert’s stem growth is maybe a centimeter taller if I’m not being crazy, but the leaves actually did seem to grow a tiny bit bigger overnight. Hopefully it’s not just my imagination and the sprout has not only survived my replanting and the injuries I caused, but now that it’s getting the light it needs it may be able to actually thrive now too. I checked on the plant after work today…and holy marijuana Batman, we’ve got continuing leaf growth!!! I’m straight up shook. No signs so far of it looking or acting sickly from my shenanigans yesterday, the leaves are actually growing instead of the growth pausing from shock (though it’ll prob be a bit slower for a few days), and that new leaf green color is so friggin gorgeous and unblemished it would make an angel cry. I’m unbelievably pleased.

10/13 I’ve been out of town for several days, and using an outlet timer I left Mango Sherbet on a 20 hours of light/ 4 hours of darkness cycle, with misting twice a day from my house-sitter using plain filtered water I’d PH balanced. I have two small fans running (though one was plugged in to the timer as well, and was off when the lights went dark), one pointed above the plants and one pointed below for good circulation. Mango Sherbet also gets rotated in half turns 2-3 times a day to get a nice, even coverage of light all around. I left the dehumidifier on the entire time, which was definitely a good thing with how humid and rainy my city got during this past week. Even left on, the humidity level in the room stayed at about 66%-67% - which is right where I want it right now, so it works out. Growth on leaves and stem pretty much halted while Mango Sherbet adjusted to its 3rd re-potting and redirected the bulk of her energy toward growing roots from the buried section of the stem. Not a huge difference in growth compared to last week overall, but from the pics sent from my house-sitter it looks like Mango Sherbet’s leaf growth finally started up again about two days ago. The stem looks a bit thicker now and the leaves have definitely grown. My badass Mango Sherbet is dusting herself off and kicking back into big-girl growth with a new set of healthy, happy little leaves. I just love the particular gorgeous shade of green that shows up on new growth, and I’m really pleased to announce that although not really grown in yet, the new leaves are looking exactly as I’d hoped so far. After the repotting I would say that it took maybe a full week or so for growth to start up again above-ground. It’s about what I expected realistically after some research, though I‘ll admit I was low-key hoping she’d bounce back right away and start taking off with the vigor my other sprout (Light Saber – different journal) has showed. To be fair though, my other sprout did benefit quite a bit from the learning I went through to figure out how to fix mistakes with Mango Sherbet, so it started out with comparatively ideal circumstances while poor Mango Sherbet had to work with me a bit until I figured out what to do. Still, it’s only the third week in a five to six month journey, so I can’t let myself get too excited and impatient lol. Despite being three weeks old, Mango Sherbet is probably closer to a week 1 or 2 sprout in terms of development. Final note for this week before posting – finally got my grow tent (5ft tall, 2ft deep, and 4ft wide) this morning. Setting it up today, so week 4 posting will occur after a full seven day run with the tent.

10/16 Been mostly misting, but gave her a bit of a watering when the pot seemed a little too light. Mango Sherbet’s growth since redirecting her energy from the roots has been straight up explosive, quickly making up for lost time in terms of size and development. That first set of secondary leaves will remain on the small side as a side effect of my transplants, but all the other growth from here on out should be big and beautiful. Wish there was more to report or do right now, but it’s just a mist and wait game at this point lol. The fox farm soil I’m using is high in nutrients for the first few weeks, and by the time she gets hungry it’ll be a good time to transfer her to the 5 gallon pot. The nutrients from the added dirt should buy me another week of regular watering, then I’ll start gradually add more veg phase plant food to make up for the decreasing nutrient levels in the soil. 10/19 Nothing too new or crazy to report other than to confirm Mango Sherbet is still doing solid in the growth department. Since I’m looking in on the plant twice a day to mist her it can be easy to forget how big a difference there is just compared to the photos taken for last week’s entry. I’ll probably wait another two weeks before putting her in the next pot size so I'm not jostling her around too much too often lol. 10/20 Looking gorgeous and healthy, there are zero current issues for Mango Sherbet as of posting today. She may not be quite as developed as one would expect with this being the end of week 4 since germination, but considering the growth she displayed after her late start I’m feeling pretty excited to see what week 5 of growth will produce, and luckily since she's a photoperiod plant, having a week of delayed growth isn't an issue.

10/21 Mango Sherbet is still growing slowly but steadily. I’m definitely glad she’s a photoperiod though lol, otherwise this would be around the point she’d go into flower – not exactly ideal at this size lol. Her stem is getting adorably chunky considering she’s still a short little thing. 10/22 Growing some new leaves on pre-existing branches and continuing to pop out more big and gorgeous growth up top. She’s thriving and doing it in style, though is for sure still a little thing at five weeks. To be honest I’m not too mad about that though, when I did research on this strain I found she tends to get pretty tall, especially during flower. Having her just a little shorter than others of her kind may actually make her easier to manage later considering I’m still a newbie and not as experienced in dealing with managing the flower stage and the insane stretch that can come with it. 10/23 I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to start topping and low stress training Mango Sherbet, but she’s so dang short I haven’t been able to start. And despite how healthy she looks, she’s still so little that I don’t think I’ll be able to do it this week either lol. She’s got three nodes and working on the fourth right now, but I’ll wait till the fifth starts coming in before starting on training. Honestly, if this rate of growth continues maybe I’ll fim to keep the stress down so she doesn’t get even slower. Mango Sherbet sure likes to take her time lol. 10/26 I went ahead and fimmed Mango Sherbet this morning and gave her a watering. I’ll add in the LST in another day or two after giving her some time to deal with the FIM. Otherwise she’s looking good, doing good. I’ll want to repot her soon, but I’ll wait a week, repot her, then wait another week before trying topping of fimming again. 10/27 Did the low stress training last night since I was doing a bunch of maintenance stuff anyway. It’s pretty dope to see how quickly the light penetration affects the newly exposed growth – most of them have almost doubled in size since last night. It was quick and easy at her height and I just used one tie for the main stem, but may add more to hold some of the leaves I can’t tuck using some gardening wire. I like it a lot better than the twist-ties I tried with another plant since it doesn’t start to dig into the plant as it grows.

MS Notes Weeks 6 10/30 – Midweek Been continuing to rotate the pot twice a day and as she’s been getting bigger this last week I’ve had to start watering almost everyday. I lowered the amount of plant food in her water since I’ve had to water more often, but now that it’s been a week since I fimmed her, it’s about time to repot her in a five gallon container. Mango Sherbet is growing in slowly, but I’m seeing signs of a decent number of new bud sites coming in. 11/01 Mango Sherbet doesn’t seem to be stressed from my training attempts, but she certainly isn’t responding quite as well as another strain I’ve been working on at the same time. Still though, I am seeing a solid increase in new growth this week which is encouraging. I took of the gardening wire and readjusted/tucked the bigger fan leaves under the new bud sites coming in. It’s pretty dope to see how thicc her stalks and stem are getting – she’s really coming in as a tiny, tough little thing lol. 11/02 Repotted Mango Sherbet into a 5 gallon fabric pot today, and it went perfectly. Going from a half gallon pot to a larger size is pretty easy, and there were zero issues with roots getting damaged or bound as far as I could tell, so I feel pretty confident that Mango Sherbet will adjust quickly. Still, I’m going to hold off on putting the low stress training back in place for at least a day or two while Mango Sherbet’s roots adjust to the contact I did have with them and the new source of nutrients in the fresh dirt. I watered with water dosed with cal/mag and PH’d after the repotting and popped her back in the tent. For the rest of the week I’ll probably stick to LST for the most part and try topping in another week or so. 11/03 – End of the Week Mango Sherbet is doing pretty alright so far in terms of adjusting to the transplant. She might slow down again for a week, but maybe with more space and an increase in food she’ll start to show some more growth. Maybe three or four more weeks till I flip to flower, probably four if she remains on the stunted side. She looks like a little christmas tree right now without the gardening wire pulling her over lol , it’s kinda cute. Still though, her stem is getting real thicc real fast so I’m going to give her the day tomorrow to continue adjusting to the transplant, then probably get her back in LST tomorrow night.

Mango Sherbet Week 7 Notes 11/04 Gave Mango sherbet a little extra water this morning since the dirt seemed a little dry. Smoked and put on some Netflix before setting Mango Sherbet down on a table and started off the prep work for LST by making holes about two inches apart all around the top of the new fabric pot I’m using for the grow. After that I picked out which direction I wanted to bend the stem, then worked the spot I wanted to bend for a minute to get it flexible before tying it down to the bag. After that I just worked clockwise around her as I used gardening wire to bend and pull the leaves and new bud sites out, moving branches and the fan leaves as much as I could to evenly spread everything out. Maybe I overdid it with the LST lol, but it was extremely zen and kinda fun to figure out and implement, so hopefully it’s fine. I’m finding a greater appreciation for how malleable and tough this plant is actually turning out to be, and how much it’s worked with me while I try to get a sense for how to work with her right. 11/05 Already seeing Mango Sherbet growing bigger – when I saw her tonight while watering some seedlings from another strain, my first thought was that I would probably need to adjust the LST wiring in a day or two before I remembered I just did a fresh wiring last night. Crazy lol. It isn’t quite midweek yet since I did the transplant, but I think it’s safe to say her roots barely felt the transplant, and if anything she’s thriving right now. I’m so proud lol, I was really off to a rough start with this one. 11/06 – Midweek check in Crazy new growth speed kicking in, it’s really something to see. The nodes are really close together as she gets taller so whether I happened to get a pheno of this strain that’s on the shorter, bushier side or I accidentally stunted her, she definitely isn’t letting it slow her down now. Since I was doing midweek adjustments and pics anyways, I went ahead and readjusted some of the wiring a few branches has already managed to outgrow. Don’t think she needs water quite yet, I’ll probably wait till tomorrow and feed her with Veg food/water. 11/07 Touched up on LST by spreading out some of the new colas into a more even canopy. It’s working out pretty well as far as I understand the techniques is supposed to, and as the branches are put under a degree of strain they seem to be getting noticeably stronger and thicker. When I took a look at the stem it really reminded me of a miniature tree or the mainlining technique I’ve seen others use. Very cool. Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but if it remins this easy to manipulate and control how she grows she could be perfect for trying a scrog setup alongside Light Saber (different strain/journal). Also watered with veg food from Age Old liquid today. I want to switch into full organic eventually, but for now I’m just eating through the supplies I have while I cycle through my current grows. 11/09 Didn’t do anything except rotate yesterday, but today did some minor tweaking. Working on the lst like this with Mango Sherbert has been surprisingly organized and satisfying. Rather than being a bushy plant, I think she’ll lean towards having multiple elongated colas. I haven’t worked with the main lining method myself yet, but I wonder if this strain in general would do well with it. I’ll water tomorrow or more likely the day after. 11/10 – End of Week Dirt was dry enough so I went ahead and watered Mango Sherbet with veg food mixed with water and PH’d, doing a ppm of about 550. She’s looking gorgeous and the structure feels so weirdly organized and condensed; it’s weirdly satisfying. I’m not sure exactly how long to wait till I flip her to 12/12 anymore though, especially if she’s stunted. Another two weeks? Three? I’ll have to think on it and see if I can find records of someone else’s grow with the strain; hopefully it can give me an idea on how much stretch she’ll go through.

Mango Sherbet Week 8 Notes A lot has been happening with lockdowns going into place and trying to prepare for some of the shortages and difficulties my area’s already starting to face going into winter, so I didn’t have the energy to write up notes for any of my strains this week to be honest lol. A quick overview for this last week – Mango Sherbert is doing really, really awesome. LST has worked fabulously with creating new colas that look just as big and strong as the main one. I gave her a watering just once this week after letting her get a bit thirsty, and she hasn’t seemed to mind it. I raised the lighting in the tent to keep up with her growth and keeping ppm at about 800, with PH at 6.2 after watering. Been continuing pot rotation to keep light exposure even and consistent. Thinking about sending her into flower in maybe two weeks. I don’t think I mentioned it in a previous post, but unfortunately someone broke into my car during the night a few weeks ago and tore open the envelope I had of the genetic samples for Light Saber so I could send it in and get confirmation of the gender. The samples had been handled and touched among other things, which unfortunately contaminated them. The timing and type of leaf I use for testing is pretty specific, so I wasn’t able to get another sample for the original batch of strains I wanted tested. Humongous bummer, because I’d pre-paid for the tests too. Not the worst thing in the world though lol, I’ve come this far so I’ll take the opportunity to break from planning everything out and just enjoy the mystery and surprise of the genders. I’ll just need to be extra vigilant about pollen sacs growing in and potentially reconfigure the timing of my flowering phases. At current count, there are now 9 or 10 colas (including main) with two baby ones starting to grow in. I really hope Mango Sherbet is female to be honest, I think she’ll have some gorgeous, dense colas and I want to smoke her more and more every day lol.

Mango Sherbet Week 9 Notes 11/19 Reworked some of the garden wire on Mango Sherbet for a fresh LST setup to keep the colas even and create space for extra light penetration to the newer colas. I really debated on whether to top her today, but I’ll decide for sure when I check on her tomorrow. If I flip her in two weeks, this will be my last opportunity to do the topping and still leave time for recovery. 11/20 Decided not to top her at this point and just stick to LST with her since it’s worked out pretty well. She’ll need a watering in a day or two, but I might push it a little past that. I have a bigger tent coming that I want to transfer her to, and the process will be a lot easier on me and less likely to harm her if she’s lighter because of the lack of water. 11/23 Set her up in the new tent and gave a touch up on LST before watering with cal/mag water. She’s looking nicely spread out but never did get very tall lol.

Mango Sherbet Week 10 Notes Watered twice this week, once with veg food and once with cal/mag. She’s been drinking solidly and growing wider and thicker, really responding well to a light defoliation by growing outwards noticeably. I’m dying to flip her into flower already, but she’s so small that I keep wanting to extend the length of time I have her in veg. I keep waiting for her to get big, but at this point I’m pretty sure she’s stunted. It’ll be another two months of flower before harvest, so I think it’s about time to bite the bullet and commit to the flip.

***Took the pics at night so she's looking a little limp, but she perks back up in the mornings. Mango sherbet Week 11 Notes Midweek check in Honestly I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Mango Sherbet has just been so much fun to work with. As far as being one of my very first plans to ever grow goes, I think she was a really dope way to get started and comfortable with LST because she wasn’t too explosive or hard to manage whatsoever. From my understanding of the ScrOG setup I think she’d do really well, it’s a real shame that I stunted her. Right now she’s got a sloping shape going on but I’m trying to even out just a tiny bit more before I do the flip into flower along side two other strains, Light Saber and a bummer Ghost Train Haze pheno that I decided to flip early instead of throwing more time and resources into. End of week check-in After adjusting LST, mango sherbet’s canopy is looking a lot more even and spread out now. I also did a light defoliation again - which she seems to really enjoy having the light penetration reaching the inner branches as it's really boosting some vegetative growth on the branches.

Just waiting on an auto plant in the same tent as Mango Sherbet to finish her last week and a half or so of flower so I can chop her down and get the tent set up for the switch to 12/12. I’ll house three photoperiods total in the space - Mango Sherbet (gender unidentified), Light Saber (gender unidentified) and Ghost Train Haze (female). I’ll keep a close eye out for sex characteristics on Mango Sherbet and Light Saber; but the tricky part is that even if they’re both female, all three strains are bag seed (found them while smoking through bud), which means they may have hermaphroditic origins inherited from the mother plant. Males I’ll sadly cull, but females will need to be closely monitored throughout the two month Flowering period for the appearance of pollen sacks or seeds so they can be picked off asap. Overall, I’m pretty excited. I’m seeing some fungus gnats I’ll need to clap back at before they become an issue, but otherwise smooth sailing.