Growth period

If you are thinking that lengthening the grow period through stress will make bigger plants, you are wrong. Autos will flower when they get to a certain age. Stress them and you just reduce their potential. Photoperiod plants grow biggest and fastest without stress. If you want bigger photoperiod plants, plant earlier in the season if growing outdoors or just extend the veg time indoors. Anything that delays a plant will only make the plant take longer to meets its environmental potential. Continual delays via defoliation and/or topping will just mean smaller plants outdoors, however, indoors you will be paying for a whole lot of extra electricity to achieve the same results as if you had just left the plant alone in the first place. Low Stress Training does not affect growth rates negatively in my experience. Recovery retards growth, it does not extend it.

HST needs recovery time, LST not so much. and Yes they recovery times will add into your Veg period. Without them your plant stays to small. You don't have to give them, but its unwize not to. Its why ppl tend not to use HST in autos are they have a fixed growth peroid. vs photos.

Yes it can extend the growth period a little. When you top, defoliate or train the plant it needs some time to redirect energy and recover, so growth can pause for a few days. A healthy plant will bounce back quickly and usually reward you with better structure, more bud sites and higher yields. If the plant is weak or stressed already the recovery can take longer and reduce overall potential.

Dont be scared of strssing or training a plant my friend, the morw you stress and train, the more time in veg is all, the flower time will stay the same.but the veg will be longer due to letting hwr bounce back and recover from any training you give her. Thwres plenty of videos and advice on here if you want to do a certain method, but i do highly recommend stressing and training as she will certainly rewars you amd thank you come harvest time. Ile follow along your diary now to see how you get on amd which technique you do. Peace out

Must be talking about autoflowers, because photoperiods go into flower when you tell it too... and delaying it outside would only invite trouble in any place getting cold at harvest time. The question is how consistent will any method be... how effective will it be? there's probably isntances of delaying flower on an autoflower, but can you do it everytime? Stressing an autoflower can also cause a premature flower phase, so how often will that happen, too? in general, esoteric things don't really create too much benefit once you fully consider opportunity cost and effort etc... for all those maybe, just grow a photperiod and choose the vege length without the hassle, lol.

In a nutshell, yes, in a photoperiod the circadian clock can be affected by stress, and the circadian clock can influence stress responses. The mechanism and the extent of the delay vary depending on the plant species and the severity of the stress. While plants can recover from stress, the process can involve a temporary or even permanent alteration of growth patterns. This can lead to a longer overall growth period, especially if the stress is significant or prolonged. Not something you're going to notice with a singular topping or a little defoliation, though. Stress is a very broad term and has a very complex operating system underneath the hood. Every stressor adds to the total "stress" I like to call it; each gene has a threshold for tolerance across the spectrum of stressors. The more you trigger a stress response, the more you promote desired gene expression across time. Autoflowers don't follow same ruleset, while autoflowering cannabis strains are often marketed as easy to grow and resilient, they can actually be quite sensitive to stress, particularly delays in development. Unlike photoperiod strains, which can have their vegetative period extended to recover from stress, autoflowers have a fixed lifecycle and limited time to recover from setbacks. This means that stress, such as from overwatering, temperature fluctuations, or improper training, can significantly impact their growth and final yield.

no , this is one of the main difference from applying HST to photoperiod instead of autoflowers. Auto are smaller , weaker and with a lower time to live , so growers prefer to use light stresses.