I have 40" tall lowryders -- how can I stop them?

I'm growing about a dozen Lowryder #2 in a closet. I can only raise my lights about eleven more inches before I'm out of room to raise them. I thought Lowryder #2s were supposed to average 16-20" in height... I'm at 40" and they're not really showing any signs of stopping. What can I do without really harming them?

Some info on my setup:

Home-built ebb/flow hydroponic setup with hydroton surrounding peat-pellets. I'm using 25W CFL bulbs (in 3 groupings of 4), and Botanicare plant food.

get the mower out mate all i can say....

nah are they into the flowering cycle yet ?
if not trim some excess leaves off for cloning or just chuck em and put em straight into 12/12

LST! tie them bitches down, or you could top them, but not a good idea since you're in flower

Presumably the CLLs are only a few inches away. They look like they are stretching because the light is too far from plants.

Thank you all for such prompt feedback. I'll try to answer all of you as best I can.

harvest x said:

get the mower out mate all i can say....

nah are they into the flowering cycle yet ?
if not trim some excess leaves off for cloning or just chuck em and put em straight into 12/12

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They are in 12/12 starting a couple of days ago... admittedly because I didn't realize (or remember to check) that the four freebie seeds sent to me from The Attitude seed bank were feminized but not autoflowering. The lowryders are flowering, though. The third picture I attached is one bud site.

hardroc said:

LST! tie them bitches down, or you could top them, but not a good idea since you're in flower

Click to expand...

I read somewhere (probably a post on this site) that LST and topping is not recommended for lowryders because of their short cycle. Is there something else I could do?

voodoofx said:

Presumably the CLLs are only a few inches away. They look like they are stretching because the light is too far from plants.

Click to expand...

The CFLs are barely inches away -- I've had to raise them just about every day to keep the leaves from touching them and burning, but I've tried my best to keep them as close to the CFLs as possible.

Lst means low stress training, wherever you read that it's bull shit, tie them down and it won't affect your plants any except bigger yeilds. But your plants do what you wish. Just trying to help

tie a zip tie around each of the branches and then tie something heavy enough to bring them down to a good level..THis will help in getting light to the inside of the canopy as well as making htem grow out and mroe bushy then straight upwards toward the light.

My grow shop told me Phosphoload will stop vertical growth.

you should of had them 1" away! they are DEF. strecthed, and why are they on 12/12 with autoflowers?