Newb here - should I LST now? How are my girls doing?

Hey everyone, I would appreciate your wisdom now and throughout my journey to green-land. This is my first grow... but I feel like I have a good handle of what needs to happen throughout the process.

A friend of mine gifted me 3 little friends just after they sprouted from seeds he ordered. All are top notch strains but he cant remember which is which and exactly what they are, so that is a mystery for now.

I repotted them immediately and now keeping them on my window sill (great light, south exposure). On cloudy days I keep them under a big 125w 2700k CFL I bought. You can see in the latest photo (24 days into receiving them) they have grown quite a bit. The question is: do I top them? do I LST them? Do they look ok??? I can post more pics if need be. I'm also using this fertilizer this dude gave me for free when I bought bulb... "GRO" or something like that for veg and flower.

I should note that I need to keep them short as hell because they will be going into a PC case with that massive CFL bulb. I may opt for a better stealth box if I can find something, but for now, the PC will have to do. Let me know what you guys think... thanks!

In my expierence different strains react different when topping, if you just wanting to keep em short than ya top them. Are you planning on keeping these as your mothers? I personally like keeping my mothers shorter and squatty and premoting multiple branches.

Also what i usually do is take a clone of each and throw the plants started from seed into the flowering room to see if they are somthing id want to keep

I might try topping just one and LST the other two just to spread the risk out a little bit... I am thinking of taking a clone of each soon-ish and flowering the clones immediately to sample the bud and see which should be kept as the mother. I think I should be able to keep them on the window sill till late july or so without danger of them flowering on their own due to shorter days.

if ur growing in a pc i would put them into flower right away and lst them hey will soon out grow that pc

To me the reason that I LST is to expose the lower nodes to light to promote a wider more branchy growth and get my plants ready to ScrOG. So at your plants point in development they dont quite need that yet since it looks like the lower spots where nodes will eventually sprout are getting plenty of light. But within just a few days, I think they will be ready. Heres some pictures of how big mine were before and after I started their very first LST and it turned out excellent. Looking back I actually could have started a little sooner though.

Before:


After

any time the main growing tip is lower than the next set of branches it will cause branching without having to top it.in another words bend the main tip over at about a 80 degree angle and watch the branching begin.i hate to top my plants or fim ,lst does the same thing without the delay in growth and cutting off what will be your biggest cola.you can check my journal none of my shit has been topped and i think it's fair to say they branched

any time the main growing tip is lower than the next set of branches it will cause branching without having to top it.in another words bend the main tip over at about a 80 degree angle and watch the branching begin.i hate to top my plants or fim ,lst does the same thing without the delay in growth and cutting off what will be your biggest cola.you can check my journal none of my shit has been topped and i think it's fair to say they branched

ThegrowerMOJO said:

any time the main growing tip is lower than the next set of branches it will cause branching without having to top it.in another words bend the main tip over at about a 80 degree angle and watch the branching begin.i hate to top my plants or fim ,lst does the same thing without the delay in growth and cutting off what will be your biggest cola.you can check my journal none of my shit has been topped and i think it's fair to say they branched

Click to expand...

Thats the truth, I don't like to top because honestly I get better results with LST anyways without setting my plants back a week in growth. Because seriously waiting a week is really shitty when you could be a week closer to harvest!

excellent, thanks guys! MOJO, ill be sure to check out your journal. I think I will LST 2 of them and try topping the third to see which works out best in the end for my set up. this is my first grow and all about learning.

Yeah it really will be best to test it yourself, everyone has a different setup with different strains so the only way to know for sure what will work for you is to test it out. Good luck!