plant stage 1st timer

1st week of stretching, 1 more week and your bud will form like a cotton ball. Would not touch her till she done transition or end of next week if it my plant

Pre flower you will see a pistil shoot out of nodes here and there. Also a maturity sign.

should say 'preflower' isn't a phase. seedling/sprout -> vegetative phase -> bloom phase. seedling/sprout is quite ambigious, where as vege and bloom phases are very specific.

photoperiods are in bloom once nights are long enough. it is a simple hormonal feedback loop inside the plant. a particular molecule is produced in darkness... if it receives enough uninterrupted darkness the concentration of that molecule will cause the plant to shift gears... even if some 'vege' (stem elongation / leaf production) continues for a few weeks afterward, it is already in flower the moment the biology changes inside the plant -- not what we can see. Autoflowers are the same except the trigger is not based on hours of darkness it receives each day. something else triggers it. there is variation to it -- the difference between smallish autos and "XXL" autos is mainly how long it veges before it flips itself, ignoring all other factors for a moment. When you see preflowers on an autoflower, it's probably been in flower for 7-10 days. you'd have to guesstimate like you would with an outdoor plant. you'll get more consistent and accurate measurements of flower length that way, too. if relying on something you can see, it'll always be inconsistent. it happens internally and beyond the resolution of the human eye. when you see it, it's already been in flower for a while. (some photoperiods do pop preflowers before bloom, but i doubt that occurs with autoflowers or very seldomly with an extremely long vege autoflower)