"advanced" techniques on first grow?

This is my first grow. I'm just using some random bag seed - I don't want to spend a lot of money on some nice seeds and fuck up. I figure this is a good time to figure out what's going to work for me and what's not. My two seedlings are less than a week old, and seem to be doing well. They're growing under CFL's right now.

My question is - is this a good time to attempt using some "advanced" techniques like LST, topping, or FIM? I'm most interested in LST, as I've seen some great looking plants with lots of buds using that technique. However, since it does stress the plants, and since I'm an inexperienced grower, should I wait until my 2nd or 3rd grow before attempting it? Has anyone killed any plants using LST?

its pretty easy just dont be heavy handed and make shur when you tie her down that the root ball wont pop out of the soil. i did it on my first grow wasnt no thing but a chicken wing on a sting

but on my second grow I decided to go el-natural and i might dig that more but who knows ill prolly lST again

This is my first grow and I LST'd a bit to help control height mostly and didn't notice any stress or have any problems. Well, I take that back -- I didn't realize that after bending the main stalk down it would curve up towards the light so quickly overnight. I had the light lowered and the thing sat on the bulb for several hours and did some damage to the top, but thankfully I'm using CFL so it wasn't too bad.

Thanks pandabear and wbd, I will definitely take that into consideration.

Pandabear, I'll be interested to see how much each plant yields going au naturel vs. LST'd.

I'm doing LST on one of my plants. Its much easier than it looks.

whats LST?

Low Stress Testing, i think iunno what the T stands for again its where u train ur plant to grow horizontal and bushier than vertical and tall, so u get a push not a tree. its great for small places. plus it lets light focus on the big colas, starts some small colas on the bottom casue ur tieing down brances to bend so they get more direct light. its great.imma do it myself later, and its cool to see a less than 1 tall plant but its 2 ft horizonal with lots of huge buds lol

i think the T is Training, but whatever it dont matter

When i was a first time grower I tried every "advanced" technique i could. And everything seemed to turn out ok.
If you kick its ass, you can damage the plant, but I had this 6 inch tall baby and i accidently snapped her in half. folded over. I flipped her up splinted her with a paperclip and string, and in a week she was standing on her own again. a few days went by and I tried to LST her and *snapped* her again higher up. splinted again, the wound, and BAM* a few days later she was healthy and growin up again.
So after all this, I decided to turn her into a red headed stepchild. I bent her, twisted her, smacked her around. After all i did to her, she lived. She has all this huge bumps on her stalk from her scars but i put her into flower about a month ago and she is FANTASTIC.

Just make sure you splint her if you break her.

They are weeds. They will live longer then us. Good Luck on your grow.