It's day 14 for my autos, should I think about LST soon?

[SleepyTibbs]

I thought autoflowers started pre-flowering sometime soon after week 4 regardless of what you do to them?

[quirk]

Now you're talking SleepyTibbs and thank you.

[PRIMO]

quirk You were posting while I was typing "slowly" but I agree. Don't be afraid to abuse em a little, or a lot, they love it, and it pays off.

[SleepyTibbs]

Those look beautiful! I would be extremely happy getting anywhere even close to that this time. I had the lights at 100% for most of the day and then down around 70% for a few hours, but after seeing your autos in comparison to others ive seen i'll stick with my first instinct and keep the lights at max unless the leaves start telling me they dont like it.

[PRIMO]

Top em at 3 weeks wait 2 weeks top em again tie em down,spread em out, defoliate once in a while, wait for the magic. It adds a few weeks to your grow ,but you'll love it. If you drop the tops you cut off in some rapid rooters you can grow some gnarly clones too! Just saying,.... "oh yeah you can"

[quirk]

You're plants look just fine for their age. I'm not familiar with lowering light intensity to promote distance between nodes. I hit every strain with max light after day 14 and begin training when the fifth node is well developed, no matter the distance between nodes. Here's a couple of pics showing the anatomy of the finished product. First two pics are LST with the first showing one rough trimmed, one not. You can see nodes are tight. The last pic is of topped plants. LST yield was little under an ounce more than the topped plants.

[SleepyTibbs]

Definitely going to do LST on this first grow after seeing your examples. I noticed that top right picture has nodes very close together like mine do. Is that a good thing or is there something to what my buddy was saying about turning down the light intensity and letting them stretch a bit?

[quirk]

All at once SleepyTibbs .Takes a couple of minutes, from removal to tie down. I rarely top my autos, but when I do, I top above five and remove under four.
Glad the pics help. Example of both training methods.

[SleepyTibbs]

quirk Thank you the pictures help a lot. I was also asking a friend of mine for input and when I sent him the pictures I attached here he was saying the stalk looks pretty thick for their stage and recommended I turn the intensity of the lights down to 50%-60% and let them stretch vertically a bit. He also recommended topping around the red line in the other pictures after they stretch a bit instead of LST. They are familiar with both autos and photos but I think they are much more familiar with photos. In your pictures your autos look great so I think this grow I will try LST as you have shown it. When you prune the lower nodes do you do it all at once then tie down?

[SoOrbudgal]

Hey no real direction which way. Look at quirk he's showing a very good example of LST SleepyTibbs.

[quirk]

In your post you mentioned that you read it's a good idea to start around week three. I wait until a well developed fifth node and that's typically Day 20-24 from sprout, Then I remove under node 4 and start training. It's grower preference and this works for my autos. Here's a training tip when using fabric bags. Grommets. Good luck

[SleepyTibbs]

SoOrbudgal Is there a specific direction I should bend them, for example, perpendicular to the last node or anything like that? Was planning on doing something similar to the picture here but I have poly-coated wire instead of twine and I am going to use those little tie fighter looking paper clips clamped to the pot as the tie down point.

[SoOrbudgal]

Sure if you want to SleepyTibbs another day won't hurt an it will make them stronger. These little plants once they start going grow fast an get real firm snappy branches. So OK to wait till tomorrow.

[SleepyTibbs]

I gave them each about a SOLO cup full of water on the 24th, should I wait until tomorrow to start LST when they are more likely to need water?

[Canuck147]

Yup you can start training now.
Check out a thread I started - autoflower training - I have 3 plants i am LST ing.