Is this seedling stage or early veg?

these labels are irrelevant to growing. Useful when communicating context to others, but the actual effort to grow is not useful. So, no worries. You'll find varying definitions of when a plant is no longer a seedling. I prefer to focus on cause and effect vs a label. If it's asking for full power on the lights (i.e. stretching) and it's handling full strenght fertilizer, it's no longer a seedling as far as i am treating it. What it wants dictates what i do.. not an ambiguous label that barely correlates to reality. call a young plant a seedling and it communicates the idea to others, but not much use to you in your garden. And, not even a consistent definition among plant biologists, lol. even if there is a specific definition, it's still ambigious to some extent. like the scientific term "organic" -- it's a silly term even in chemistry. instead of admitting a mistake they just re-defined it at least 1 time, lol... originally the term was made up before we could synthesize organic molecules. there are exceptiosn to the genearlized rules (i.e. co2 is inorganice even though it contains carbon) .. it's a mostly useless term that reflects the corruption of species-centric / earth-centric bias. Chemistry is still 10x better than biology with this problem, lol. first serated leaves? 8" tall? who gives a f? am i right? what does the plant want and need... it's pretty consistent regardless of the label. It's only a few days before they need increasingly intense light. while a seed can power itself early on, a light dose of nutes or whatever is in a soil can speed up the process slightly. in a soilless context, i'm feeding nearly full dose by the first irrigation after sprouting - only 1.0-1.3EC, which would be considered a light charge in soil, i assume. When it needs full power / full nutes, it's 'mature' enough.

Thanks for the responses!

3 weeks 16 questions and counting. Loser! Bwahaha

Seedling. If it matters, in my medical license it states a plant taller then 8 inches is technically in a vegging stage. That's how they classify it where I am. You at the point they will start growing faster, and faster. So in a few days to a week I personally would not say they are seedlings anymore.

Veg starts when you get the first true leaves. I consider the first jagged edge 3 leaf's true leaves. This is Start of veg. I consider first 7 days from the time the seedlings pops up, as seeling and germ.

Once you see the first-fingered leaves, your plant has entered the vegetative stage. So this would be considered early veg.