Branch Growth

You've answered this yourself in your grow journal: too many weeks with the humidity far too low relative to the plant's actual needs, and after 4 weeks of growing you still haven't stabilized it and are seeing daily fluctuations as much as 20%. Given time, and if you avoid high stress training techniques which aren't supposed to be done on an unhealthy plant (as you have here, unless your aim is to kill it more quickly), the plant may still recover if you get on top of your environment problem you've had for four weeks (the humidifier doesn't fix it when your plant is experiencing 20% fluctuations, which you need to fix first before deliberately using High Stress Training techniques). Better still: since this is your first grow, your plant is unhealthy, stunted, and you still don't have the humidity dialed in, would be to go with gentle LST when the plant has enough height and is looking more healthy. You may have some stagnant water in the soil and poor drainage from your choice of pot as well. I've covered how to fix this. Something you can try next watering is to mix hydrogen peroxide 3% (2 tablespoons/gallon) to the water as it will kill any root fungi and harden both the plant and roots against fungus plus improve aeration of the root zone, something your choice of pot doesn't do well. You only need to do this one or two waterings. And its worth looking at how you're watering as a common newbie mistake I've also made is to over water. though I didn't do too bad there. A last question: have you used a fan on your plant at all? You spec your setup but I don't see it in your photos or notes and since you added things as you needed them (which I did too) its not clear if you ever added a fan. If you have no fan on your plant then its going to develop weak stems as a fan serves as training weights, though the trick is not to use too much air (which I did my first weeks). Most growers use a 6" oscillating fan, though I went cheap and mine doesn't oscillate. Something I did early to compensate was to regularly rotate the plant. Though it still developed wind burn just from having even a small fan blowing very gently on it, and a refinement I picked up this grow is to not run the fan 24/7 but to cycle it on and off instead (more off than on during the first days). Though I'm not trying to dishearten you. My advice is to keep it simple. After 28 days with no tent you're either going to have to buy a tent, or try other methods to stabilize your environment problem. And if you haven't added drainage and a fan, you need to so sooner than later - this is fundamental stuff. I would worry about getting the fundamentals dialed in and would not do any HST - your plant has been stressed enough. Gentle LST when the plant is ready is a better alternative. And next grow I would ditch the bucket (I have one just like it I use to feed my plant in to keep the tent clean) and get a fabric pot. Until then, its still soon enough to salvage provided you get the environment and pot situation fixed and don't make the other common first grow mistake of over-feeding with nutes. Less is more (make sure you are ph testing your water: 6.5 is ideal, though 6.3-6.8 is acceptable for soil).