Strawberry Gorilla and Banana Purple Punch - Newbie Grow

Let the plant eat them for resources if they're not literally heavily damaged

no, do not rim anything, let plant grow, bush out, then manipulate heavy. now just big care and tlc.

You are the boss you can do whatever you want you can top up also if you want or more... some will say is auto do nothing... Still, I will say no need to cut just because you do not like the leave

Slightly confused here because different websites gives you different start dates , the same like grow apps that "autofollow" your strains. Week 1 of Veg should by books and other plants starts with true leaves , but that would mean I would have to turn my weeks back 1 down 5 Days Germ - 1'st week starts .. I would say..

i do not presoak and count first 7 days since seed touched soil as germination week, rest veg till 12/12 flip, then flower. but everyone counts diferently, its absolutely irrelevant.

When the seed emerges, it has to prepare for vegetative growth. That's why for the first 2 weeks it looks like the growth is stunted and most new growers think something is wrong.......nothing is wrong and everything is right. It's anchoring itself into the soil with it's tap root, and then it begins forming roots that branch off the tap root and begin to explore the soil. That's truly when vegetative growth and begin to take place.

No don't worry, everything will turn out fine. But yes, always fill your containers right up to the top!

and, lol i thought it was some translation error.. no i wouldn't cut the bucket down.. if you have some air currents, it'll be fine. remove any leaves pointing down into substrate.. if you really wanted to, once it's taller you can add an inch or two of substrate if you wish.. i wouldn't bother though. When you transplant, before you bury anything, place the put into the hole you dug... is it at the right level? if not dig some more or fill it in a bit to get it to the right level. i try to get a layer on top of the transplant. if you ahd good watering habits, you shouldn't have any superficial roots, so removing a 1/2" off the top of a transplant isn't too big of a deal either -- one more tool to level it out the way you want. When i transplant a larger plant in a 1gallon (vs seedling pot), i dig a partial hole with a slgihtyl udnerfilled pot. this way i can level it out and work the substrate around it to hold it steady exactly where i want it - e.g. if tilted i gently lift it and push some substrate under or pack in one side to hold it more vertically. Once sufficiently positions, then pour in some from sides to fill in the rest... hold the leaves up with one hand and dump it in, then level it out. Jst work your way around. this part doesn't take much ... dump and level. I do one half then the other. Make sure if anything is not even it is concave and not convest.. between the two options - water you put on top rolling (gravity/slope) toward center is better than toward the edges. It makes watering more of a pain to ensure no dry pocklets if ther's a slope or uneven top... the low side will sink in faster / gravity will pull it that way as you water the top... i have a sloped platform.. i slightly favor the high side with my drippers for this reason.

It doesn't look like the nodes are too tight. slow growth could be from genetics or the substrate if not the best... even the balance of nutes -- though in regard to nutes they look fine... probably just a bushy, short plant.

You train as long as you need to based off what's happening in front of your eyes, not the internet. For instance in my current grow I tied branches throughout veg but took them off for the stretch(they were beefy limbs and held their shape pretty well) so it wouldn't pull or bite into branches but then I later reapplied some to even the shape back out post stretch. Beware any advice that's linked to a certain 'week of growth'. ANYTHING you do training wise should be linked to your plant's growth and not some imaginary timetable someone makes up. Different strains, even different phenotypes within a strain, grow differently and there's no one size fits all answers to growing- no matter how catchy something read in that 6th grade Physical Science book 40 years ago, biology is a little more nuanced than that. Experiment, learn and have fun with it. Over all my years of growing(yeah I'm old too)one big thing I've learned is it's really hard to screw up so bad you end up with nothing if you're mildly competent, cannabis is a very hardy and resilient plant. In the end you'll become a better grower who can adapt to many situations and environments vs someone who just follows directions. It's like knowing how to bake a cake from scratch vs making a box cake. Both end up as cake but who's really the baker? And what's the box guy gonna do if he's out of mixes and only AP flour instead of cake flour?

There is variation in growth patterns, so there is no 1 answer to that question. I have some seeds from 2 inhouse plants that need to be trained until about 10 days into flower before i let it grow vertically (about as extreme as it gets).. or, i end up with a 3' deep canopy and too much larf at the bottom. Other plants need to be ready at flip to flower in order to give my target of 18-24" deep canopy. Relative to my local environmental factors (lights, climate control et al). This is the best zone of buds for me - YMMV, but the variance in growth patterns are not within our control. You typically want to leave any tie-downs and such until the end. It may seem like it is rigid, but over many weeks it will try to bend back straight, even if slightly it can make the canopy more uneven than it needs to be. I have some plant benders i remove only because the stems will eventually get too thick for them, but then i tie it down with some wire near that bend. A trellis can help too. So it's a total guessing game unless you've grown the plant before (clones)... the stretchy ones can be HST'd if they outpace shorter plants .. the unusually short ones just suck a dick. if you can use a riser for those to keep them even that's great but using something like a trellis can often make that very difficult once the plant has grown into it. don't need 40 years to figure this stuff out :P It ain't rocket science.

you can contiue to lst all the way through flower though because the plant does not grow vertically anymore but what you can do is in a few weeks is try spread the colas out so they get uniform light distribution try ease off on the defoliation because she will stop growing new fans soon and you need them to make buds bigger :) best of luck buddy.