Revolutionary stretch method or just a screwup?

[Greenfing]

Two weeks back I had an accident in the room where I keep my two WW, the heater and light fuse had blown and my growtent had freezing temperatures. This was in 3rd week of flower (after changing to 12/12)

The plants got 23 hours of darkness and temps gradually dropping down form 18C to 0,5C. (its -10C outside)

I changed out the fuse and turned on the LED lights and the heaters and let them run for a while not to stress the plant by shock heating the canopy with the HPS. Then I reverted it back to the original time cycle. The plants looked ok, but a bit droopy and I went to bed worried about them dying or getting stressed.

I must have stumbled on to some secret method here, 1 days after the fuckup the plant responded by stretching like crazy! I went from almost no stretch the first 3 weeks to crazy amounts of stretch the first day after back to normal light and temperature! It continued stretching during most of week 4 before it stopped.
Im now in week 5 day 2 and the plants looks amazing.

 

[Greenfing]

anyone got a theory about why this happened? temperature/hormones somethingsomething?

 

[DukeO]

When plants get stressed while in early flower it can affect their stretch.

If they recover from it then they may begin to stretch again.

If not it may just stay short and flower out like that.

I have seen it many times for different reasons.

I have a pair of clones right now that I over filled the water a little on one of them and stressed it a little and it has not stretch as much as the non stressed one and I do not think it will ever catch up.

Cold can slow a plant way down very fast. But it also can recover very fast if warmed up.