I’m new to growing and this forum.
I made the mistake of starting my seedlings under a window. I started them in rockwool, then transplanted them to small planters and put them under a grow light.
After a few days under the light the leggier seedlings started falling over. I then propped them up with stakes and twisty wire.
Is this the right approach or should I just let them do their thing naturally?
Do you have any pictures of the plant.
Normally, stretching and falling over is from reaching for light. What is your lighting situation? What kind, how intense, and how far from the sprouts?
Transplant them up to their neck and get better lighting for them sso they cease to stretch.
It’s a four foot long four tube light that’s about 18 inches from the top of the plants.
Here are some pictures:
In my humble opinion, you need 10X more light
Welcome to the forum.
Are you planning on putting these plants outside? Cannabis is a very light hungry plant that requires ~200 watts of quality lighting per plant for a medium sized indoor grow. It’s going to cost a fortune to get lighting that will flower that many plants indoors.
T5 bulbs aren’t going to work for you. The current standard in cannabis lighting are lights built with Samsung LM301 series diodes. The LM301h is the latest and greatest, but LM301b diodes are perfectly acceptable and are only ~10% less efficient.
Yes. Once they have reached a certain point (could use advice on that) and the weather warms up, I will transplant them to 10gal planters and put them outside.
You just need to lower the lights. Until the plants are kissing them. That should get you to transplant time.
Second the replant them deeper too. Or at least mound up the stems a little. Solo cups would work perfectly. You can even plant them off angle to one side of the cup. Stem running a bit diagonal to shorten it up into the soil a tad more.
You will be fine then if going outdoors. You just need more wattage to get the stretching under control.
Thanks for all the help. Lowered the light to within about 9’’ from the tops of the plants. Will see how that goes.
There is a phone app out there that measures light intensity called Photone. Light is measured in PPFD. Photone will give you that value. Expect to give your plants a minimum of 400 PPFD until you can get them outdoors. You don’t need the high-end lighting I mentioned if you are putting them outdoors in a few weeks.
You can place that T5 a few inches above the seedlings to slow the stretch down 
Like limbo how low can you go. The lower the better
It’s a figure carved out of whale bone. I think my parents bought it a long time ago in Alaska or someplace like that.
BTW, I got a look at the label on my light it’s this one:
I have 2 of my autoflower seedlings stretching too much and falling down I’ve been giving them about 250 ppfd as most guides recommend. Seedlings are one week old and have their real serrated leaves formed. A couple of the other ones don’t look as green as they should be which makes me wonder if they getting too much light. Lights are 12 to 18 inches high I don’t know if they need more light or less. The other six seedlings seem perfect.
The light manufacturer recommends 18 to 22" distance.
I’m a long time grower over 30 years but not of autoflowers and when you check the grow guides there’s a big variation to how much light to give
