"Stretch" phase

Good Day. I am growing 2 autoflowers, a Skunk #1 and a Haze XL. Both were planted the same day and are 25 days old today. The Haze seems to be slower to mature at 80 days as opposed to the Skunk which says 50 days. I've read enough to know those are sketchy guidelines at best. What I'm concerned about is the Skunk is getting close to the midway point, it's starting to develop an odor that's much more pronounced than the Haze. Both plants are similar in size, the Skunk is slightly taller, but still only about 8" tall. Lately I have been reading about a "stretch" phase in a lot of posts. When I try and search it, it doesn't produce a lot of viable information. The veg period and flowering period are distinct and you can find a lot of specific information. Is the "stretching" of the plant part of the veg phase? Is it the beginning of the flowering phase? While the jury is out on defoliating/pruning autos, the stretch phase or just after seems to be the optimal time to do that as well as some LST. I'm getting concerned that because of the quick nature of the Skunk and the compact stature of my plant that the lower bud sites won't get enough light to really develope if I don't get some vertical growth. Are there any Auto specialists out there who can give me some insight on what to expect or is there a way I can coax some height out of this plant. I don't have a current picture but I can post one later. I'm using an LED light, it is about 390 watts from the wall (the brightness is listed as 2000 watts). I had it at 18" above the plant and lowered it the other day to 15" if that helps. I appreciate any advice.

I think you're on glide path. My light is only 235-300W and I keep it at 24-26" until well into flower because I get light stress if I lower when there young.
Pic is day 27, not much over 10" and day 48 after stretch. Auto BlueBerry Domina.

quirk said:

I think you're on glide path. My light is only 235-300W and I keep it at 24-26" until well into flower because I get light stress if I lower when there young.
Pic is day 27, not much over 10" and day 48 after stretch. Auto BlueBerry Domina.

Click to expand...

Wow. Those look awesome, I hope mine look that good on day 48! I can see you're doing some training in the day 27 picture, did you remove any of the fan leaves there or did you just open up the plant? Did it just take off all of a sudden or was there a vigorous daily growth? I notice the growth of mine from week to week, but there has been a few times where it appears to have grown an inch (a clearly noticeable growth to the untrained eye) in the overnight period.

Thank you. Vigorous daily growth around week 5 with my strain. I remove everything under 4th node and keep tying down, bending and tucking fans to expose bud sites, removing as last resort to achieve structure in last pic.

Autos do whatever the fuck they want. I despise them. They keep stretching WELL into flower. That one in the back right i dont think she ever stopped stretching.