That sucks man. Diabetes runs in my family as well and I hope I don't end up with it. It's surprising that you blood sugar spiked like that since your sugar intake shouldn't be all that high. If anyone would have an answer for ya it would be sweetsue. I hope you get some answers you are looking for.
Thanks for sharing this.
For our autos we start them in the fun pot. Last time we didn't to see if starting in a 1 gallon and forming a good root ball first was a good plan and it turned out it wasn't. We currently have 3 autos going and they are in 7 gallon pots. They are 420 babies and one has started flowering. The other two are chugging right along growing quite well. I'll get some pictures tonight of them. As for topping, if you can get it done right around the 2 week mark from seed, then you should be in pretty good shape.
As for feeding, stay on the veg nutes until you have a good amount of pistils and that will keep them growing bigger into early flower. Then switch to bloom nutes. Also since these are going outside, the more soil the better. From what I've read and experienced, when the roots hit the bottom, they flower.
No problem buck. Thanks for jumping in and lending a hand.