If you have 7 weeks to go, do all you need to as long as she is 100% healthy and everything else is optimal.
During my 17 week veg: I fed a light veg feed for about 8 weeks. Then I pumped it up to a medium veg feed. About 4 weeks later I shoved an aggressive veg feed. Upon the late veg feed which was 1250ppm she stretched about 4” in a few days until she reached just below the lights and she stopped for the last 3 weeks and bushed out with minimal growth. The major increased nitrogen and probably bloom in the aggressive feed, I think spring her into thinking it was flower time soon and so she made that push to the light. It scared me thinking she was going to force me to move out of the tent and I was flowering in the room the tent was in
. She stayed that height until I took her out though 4 weeks later.
But! Her 3 gallon hydro bucket was too small for the roots and she was eating every drop by 24 hours after aggressive nute switch. Drought stress could have played a part in her slowing down or stopping.
This long veg I added 2 things I wasn’t using for my last run. Silica from the beginning and Sugars which I didn’t add until early flower nutrients switch. But, I believe the Silica saved her as she showed no major stress other than some deformation of the leaves, the roots were binding.
After transplant to a much bigger container and another week+ a few days new growth was solid and roots spread wild. Imagine all these roots in your soil pot and consider how much space you’ll need if you want a massive girl that will keep going.
Stretch could stop for various reasons and root bound could be one of those things that keeps her from running wild on the stretch, root zone availability. So consider the end pot size to your goals. Root bound will cause wonky leaf growth and deformation along with slowed or stunted growth, if left that way can kill the plant. I have some older leafs that have half a blade from the locking up.
4th week of flower started and she has 5x the root mass from when I transplanted her to the bigger container. But she is 5x bigger now also with the ability to grow roots freely in the space. Long veg, make sure she has adequate root space availability before she balls up in your pots. So don’t freak out if you see deformed leaves, but consider it may be due to becoming root bound and leaf deformation could be a signal to starting to bind.
Every foliage you cut and every growth has a root system grown with it. When you prune/cut any growth, the plant looks more slim up top but roots keep growing. So root mass is a total of all top growth regardless of how much you’ve cut and slimmed her down. She has already made roots for that growth.
