Ok, I am brand new to growing. I'm still waiting for my seed order to be processed, it's hard to stay patient. Any way. .. I've been doing a lot of reading and educating myself on different methods for good quality and monster yields. Simplifying an idea I was pondering. .. Almost every thing I read says that buds form where light touches and plants grow towards the light...so what if... Besides having a top light what if you strategically placed lights around the bottom of the plant pointing up? Wouldn't this encourage short/bushy growth? Also wouldn't bud form better on the lower branches? Obviously this would only be practical for extremely small grows. Thoughts, ideas,advice? Thanks!
Lights under the plants doesn't really work. The bottoms of leaves don't really absorb sunlight for photosythesis, maybe 5% of the light would actually get used for that purpose. You might think the leaves would spin around and point towards the lower lights but they won't. They will continue to grow up towards whatever light you have above them. That's not to say that you had a terrible idea, just slightly off. Instead of putting lights under the plants pointing up it's best to put them on the sides near the middle of the plant where the tops of the lower leaves will be getting the light. Sidelighting can increase yields because leaves under the canopy are photosynthesizing that light where they normally wouldn't be getting much light.
Also look up LST and Scrog techniques for maximizing space and evenly distributing light in small grows. If you haven't already.
Main-lining/manifolding can also be a great technique for controlling size and maintaining even canopies in small grows. If your interested do a google search for "main-line nugbuckets" and the first result will show you everything you could need to know to do it. It seems crazy, but it works really well.