My first stab at LST. Any tips and constructive criticism welcomed.
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The plant will keep trying to straighten itself out for a while, so keep on training to one side until the stems harden off a bit 
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What is considered awhile? A few days? A week?
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Leave it tied down
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You’ll be able to tell when they aren’t trying to grow straight anymore and accept their training.
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And or move the red tie up a node, and so on as it gets taller
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I’m new to this, but I always thought we should wait till the 5 node arrives before LST?
From what ive learned, thats for topping? I could be mistaken.
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If I was trying to make a 12” wide “manifold,” I would let the plant get 14-16” tall first, because new growth is going to be most vigorous at the highest point on the plant. If you bend it over too early, you see the lower axial limbs shoot up, but so does the tip of the meristem. I’ve found you end up with a dense cluster of stems shooting up.
When bending, I would use soft-coated wire or plain wire. Pipe cleaners seem like a bad idea to me, since those are plastic fibers and they’re bound to end up in flower.
I would pull the end of the branch/stem down from the endpoint, instead of somewhere in the middle, as you have done.
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That’s for topping/fimming.
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Thanks. Got it.
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Would this method be applied to both photos and autos? These are autos and I figured starting early training wouldnt hurt it and maybe give it a boost. Otherwise ill take those ties off and wait another couple weeks. As far as the pipe cleaners, these are extremely soft, and ive seen alot of growers use them. they are incredibly cheap.
@TommyD when topping or fimming you do wait for more growth you top them and it’s still called LST when you start tying down your branches. So you are right but when training in a different way. I don’t like bending the entire plant over like done here I’d rather do it the way you are referring to
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@KeystoneCops Exactly what I was thinking when I first looked at pic. End of the branches are much more flexible therefor easier to train without accidentally doing damage. @UncleSam I’m at the end of my second grow with autos, so please take this with a grain of salt. I’ve done a fair amount of experimenting with them tho. One thing I’ve noticed that it seems autos respond better when waiting a bit to start LST. My current grow I’m doing 3 zkittlez autos, one I trained pretty early (as I did my other strains and also all the autos in my first grow.).at About 3 weeks old. However I started one of my zkittlez about 3 weeks after her sisters, and thought I’d let her go el natural and see what an auto will do if left alone. It almost seems like the ones trained(first grow and second) when into flowering earlier then the ones untrained. So the ones trained were much smaller once entering flower. But the girl I let go with no LST. Shot at of the ground and now is triple the size of her sisters that are 3 weeks older. She’s got massive side branching and even tho I wanted to let her go, at 5 or 6 weeks after her flowering stretch, I had to do some light LST on the side branches just to open up the middle a little and give room for all. She is going to harvest way more than her sisters. This could be mere coincidence, and may vary with strain. Zkittlez is known for good side branching. But the zkittlez I trained didn’t have much side branching, basically she’s a big fat cola about size of beer can. But will get smashed at harvest weigh in by her non LST sister. Just my thought. But my next grow(autos) I think I’m going to back off a bit at first in the LST.
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10m of super foam tie is $3 at HTG. I know plenty of people use craft store pipe cleaners. Plenty of people spray their cannabis with growth hormones and eagle20 too.
Apical dominance is universal to all cannabis plants. The uppermost growth will always receive more energy than lower growth; bending the plant is a manipulation of the hormonal functions of the plant. But in the end, the potential for vegetative or floral growth is a function of light/air/nutrition (unless you add PGR, which I don’t endorse ever). The plant will add a limited number of inches based on the environment you provide. LST simply manipulates where that growth occurs.
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@KeystoneCops PGR?
Don’t even worry about it. It’s cancer.
@KeystoneCops. Lol. Ok. I hate the C word. For more reasons than one. I was just curious. I noticed a new tag next to your screen name. Congrats on the level up😁