LST

What do you mean seemed to be in danger? Like it was gonna snap? Use some plant ties or pipe cleaners to tie them down. Low Stress Training (LST) Tutorial | Grow Weed Easy I'd highly recommend giving this a read if you can. Should answer a lot of your questions.... the whole site is really a great guide! You can LST any time you want (try to avoid doing it during flowering), they say it's better late to LST than never!

 

No reason not to start early, plants are very forgiving. Just bend it over and use ties like TWW suggested. Just be gentle they'll be ok.

 

Could always add more soil around them stem as long as your not above the claycxl's or however you spell it. It will actually start growing roots there and may give you some extra support.

 

Oh I gotchya! I know EXACTLY what your problem is! You need to have a "counter weight" - in other words, have another pipe cleaner at the bottom of the base of the stem pulling 180 degrees away from where you're LSTing.

Here's a visual to make it simple. Where I drew the red line is where you should put your counter. In other words, if you're bending the plant in one direction, make the pipe cleaner at the base go the exact opposite direction so it doesn't uproot itself.

 

I would say for your first grow and using an autoflower seed I would just let it grow, what light are you using ?

 

I'm on my first grow also so check my journal out about my lst. I waited about 3 weeks before I started bending down. I also broke a branch, taped it and had full recovery. Good luck with yours and it's looking good so far

check out my first grow/journal https://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?threads/1423342/

 

you can't lst to much IMO, the idea is to create as many dominant tops as possible, by tying down the tops you force the plant to rearrange growth hormones called auxins, they control the growth of certain nodes, by tying them down the plant thinks something is in the way and moves energy to other limbs to grow up the light, ideally you want as many tops heading to the light as possible as this will increase yield, I found I get best results when I keep the dominant top low while the others catch up, this will balance the hormones equally among the lower nodes, best of luck, also I lst at about 6in or so, doing any lst before hand isn't really nessecqry as having any leaves low to the soil will reduce quality air flow

 

It's most important to LST the 3-4 strongest growing branches to let the slower ones catch up. The goal shouldn't necessarily be creating tons of off-shoots, but getting what you do have to grow evenly and make the best use of your light. If you train a lot you'll end up with lots of small branches with small buds. If you just train just a few you'll get fewer, larger branches and bigger buds. Can you post any pictures?


White Widow autoflower x4

 

This is what mine looked like at roughly three weeks old in hempy buckets.


Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

Unless your light is within an inch or two I don't think you have to worry about it being too close. You may want to consider adding some more light before they start to flower. If you have some soft white CFL bulbs laying around those can help.


White Widow autoflower x4