Mephisto Genetics 650+ plants/9 strains/3600w grow out

[SkatterBrayne]

You weren't kidding about them being fast flowering. Those are bananas for 60ish days. I just wish you had some smell-o-vision for that bubblegum. I cant even comprehend how you have so many strains and phenos looking so good. I have three questions for you, if you dont mind...


#1) Do you use your own soil mix out there, or prebagged?

#2) Do you organize your plants by putting similar phenotypes together to treat them "Individually"? I ask because I am on F2s of a pollen chucking experiment (nothing serious), but "Playing the middle" doesn't seem to be an option with so many plants, and curious how you handle it.

#3) Where would you rank stress resistance in your selection process? Have you been putting them through 'bootcamp' or any sort of gauntlet to see how they hold up? The quality is undeniable, but do any of your strain have unique resistance to mold, temps, anything like that? Are any of them particularly temperamental?

 

[sir grow alot]

good Q's Skatter :dig:

 

[mephisto]

Sorry guys, we are mid-harvest on the unpollinated plants. I read your posts but couldn't grab a second until almost 3am now

HBT looks very tasty guys....:drool:

Thanks pal, she has the most pleasant perfume, no1 on the 'to smoke' list

Sooo manyyy Purtty Budzzz! :Sharing One:

Thanks mate, I'm taking photos as we go on with trimming, almost there, so i'll get a decent update or two together as soon as I can

You weren't kidding about them being fast flowering. Those are bananas for 60ish days. I just wish you had some smell-o-vision for that bubblegum. I cant even comprehend how you have so many strains and phenos looking so good. I have three questions for you, if you dont mind...

Hi bud, don't mind at all, I'll do my best to answer you

#1) Do you use your own soil mix out there, or prebagged?

To start seeds we buy in biobizz lightmix straight out of the bag. Especially when starting in small pots, it stretches quite along way, so well worth it.

The soil we transplant into, is our own recycled mix. It wouldn't be practical, or cost effective to bring in all the soil we need.
Biobizz lightmix is the base, from previous runs and we also accumulate a fair amount from males culled, cuttings that don't root or are discarded early on.
We ammend the soil with worm castings, bat guano, dolomite lime, and further re-fertilise with products like 'pre-mix'.
Depending whether it's for indoor or outdoor use we will mix in extra perlite or vermiculite.
Give it a big mix, water it, and then we leave it for at least a month generally.
It's been a simple but tried and tested method for me in the past, so we're happy doing it this way.


#2) Do you organize your plants by putting similar phenotypes together to treat them "Individually"? I ask because I am on F2s of a pollen chucking experiment (nothing serious), but "Playing the middle" doesn't seem to be an option with so many plants, and curious how you handle it.

It depends on the degree of differences between the individuals in a group, If it's marginal, I will just do my best to organise the smaller plants into the middle and the larger ones to the perimeter. I prefer to keep them grouped by strain, even though everything is labelled (twice usually). If the differences are too huge, then we will just group by height and allocate one light or however many are needed, to have all the random taller plants beneath it.

The whole room gets the same nutrient profile, running this many strains and plants, and having further rooms to tend to, we just don't have the time to do it any other way.

#3) Where would you rank stress resistance in your selection process? Have you been putting them through 'bootcamp' or any sort of gauntlet to see how they hold up? The quality is undeniable, but do any of your strain have unique resistance to mold, temps, anything like that? Are any of them particularly temperamental?

I think every grow has been a stress test so far, at least since being in Spain. It's a large contrast to what we were used to previously, at home we could more or less do everything with our eyes closed. Here, we have for example (indoor), mites, aphids, mildew, bees. Our water had an insane ppm, now RO only. Very high humidity here aswell, we have had 70% rh as an average the last few weeks.

Also continually building spaces, refining spaces, waiting on equipment etc, it's pretty much been a baptism by fire.

Outdoors, last year was our first real season. But we are improving each time I hope.

It's not just the growing of course, but the scale of everything else that eats into time, and therefore directly effects the time we can spend with the plants. Namely harvesting and processing (after building).

We also have power cuts during any stormy weather, which usually happens at night.

So, don't be fooled into thinking they have a privaliged, pampered life. I would love to be able to spend time with each plant everyday to pick it up, check it over, admire it, rotate it and put it back (like I used to) but It's impossible right now. So instead they get a quick checkover and have to rough it a bit.

I'm happy to say thusfar there are no standout troublemakers, and i'm happy to report i've been pleasantly surprised by some varieties, I could comment on some strains that have done well this round, and previously, but I just want to keep growing them out under different conditions to really define their characterists further.

We have had a few tiny spots of mould, perhaps one/two buds on around 7 out of 120 plants in one area, that could have been due to a combination of high humidity and a slightly late spider mite spray treatment, it was across several strains so I couldn't specify whether one strain is susceptible or just bad luck.

I do plan to work on a true mould resistant auto this summer using some special canadian genetics, that are proving themselves in the UK amongst friends.

To say certain groups of plants were started in, and kept in sub 1 litre of soil for in some cases up to three weeks, I have been impressed by the vigour and size many have reached.

But to answer your question, I do want to produce the most solid varieties and family of plants that I can, so I do select plants that perform the best and are the hardiest, healthiest and happiest in our somewhat testing environment. Of course no plant is ever invincible, and everyones conditions are unique, so I would like to hope they will all fair well in any garden, and flourish with a greenthumb helping them.

good Q's Skatter :dig:

Hope I answered them

Cheers all, update when I can. Mitch

 

[redsky9]

Great grow bro :drool:
nJoy.

 

[SkatterBrayne]

Answered to perfection, thanks Mitch!

That's great to hear about the less than optimal conditions (Sorry! Woops). Im sure those variables are haunting your dreams, but it looks and sounds like you've got them controlled atleast. The girls don't seem to be too turned off by the conditions at all though, which is GREAT to see.

Good luck with the rest of your harvest. Im sure you are glad you devised that seed contraption right about now haha

 

[mephisto]

Perfection is what we want to aspire to, but it's a work in progress, so along as we are heading in a positive direction, I'm happy.
no disasters and the vast majority of plants happy, most importantly we've worked all the varieties through another generation, recorded lots of information and points for future reference, got lots pg nice images. So all in all, happy boys

 

[sir grow alot]

great explanation and really appreciate you taking your time out of your insane routine to share some knowledge and answering Skatters Q's!!

and the pics you post look like perfection to me so if your arent there yet i cant wait to see what you call perfect keep it up and happy growing!!!

 

[mephisto]

Thanks bud, I have a lot of photos to go through, and update, then this thread will almost be at an end. Cheers, mitch

 

[mephisto]

Lots to catch up on, been insanely hectic of late!

Here's the last few chem city blues (unpollinated) , which was harvested at day 72

waiting for smello-vision

Really enjoyed growing these, there's some large heavy yielding phenotypes which I bred to, some purps phenos to be had too in the mix if that's your bag.
Nice structure, branchy with tight internodes between each set, definitely worth removing the bottom set of branches, then a week or so into flower clearing the lower parts of the branches of fluff in order to see some big colas, they seem to have a good mould resistence, I will think about this as a candidate for the auto parent for an outdoor auto cross I really want to make this season.

 

[astronomy420a]

fur coat's in spain?:Sharing One:some tasty bud shot's