HELP PLEASE!!! What week flowering am I in???

Ok, so this is my second or third grow. But I consider it my first cause now I'm trying to take all the right steps. I just need a confirmation on which picture you think my plant has started flowering, so I can count 9 weeks from that. My plant is an OG Master clone, age was around 4 to 6 weeks when I initially bought and planted the clone. So very first pic is the very first day I planted it, May 25, 2011 on a Wednesday. Each pic is 1 week interval, so the second pic is on Wednesday one week after I planted it, and so on. In week 7, the 7th picture I started to notice more of the white hairs being produced and I knew it would flower soon. So my question is should I count my flower weeks from week 7 the 7th picture or week 8 the 8th picture? The week 8 pic, the plant has definitely filled out and crested, so I was considering to start my 9 week count from that day. Would you start counting at the 7th or 8th pic, or which pic?

Your first week of flowering is going to be the first time you seed white hairs forming. From what I can tell your not very far along flowering, but then again maybe closer look at the buds would tell a different story.
It is a nice bushy looking plant.

REALLY????? You don't know what week your own plants are into flowering but you expect complete strangers to tell you??

You don't really want to depend on a timeline anyway for when the plant is done. Especially in an outdoor grow. To many variables involved. Either use the trichrome inspection method, or insight. I use the later as it's just as easy to "know" when the look right.

I was just hoping that someone with experience maybe able to tell what week of flower I am in. Don't criticize, I put this in the newbie section so yes I do expect a complete stranger to say it looks like you should count from this week on. Like I said, in pic #7 I noticed more white hair formation, but week 8 the plant filled in with a lot of leaves and crested. Sorry for no close ups of the buds but looks like I have well over and ounce of flowers if i were to cut now. A few hairs are just starting to turn red/brown but 98% still white, and looks like it is getting a sugar sprinkling every night. I am going to purchase a 30x magnifying glass to get a closer inspection at trichomes. What do you guys go for with trichome inspection, cloudy or amber?

Hi nekro,
It's kinda a tough question cause different strains react differently. you mentioned week eight the plant crested, that's sounds like it.
Sounds to me like that was the end of the plant stretching and I would figure 6 to 8 weeks from there, then pull the scope out.

Trichomes while clear are processing the light, when they go cloudy they stop processing light and are ripe.
When they turn amber they are degrading. You will find they are different colors at different parts of the plant but if you wait till you see a few amber you can bet most of them have at least turned cloudy and its ready.

Looks like week 1.

...i'd check up on it every couple of days and observe the trichomes. you'll want the cloudy whites and avoid both clear and amber tints. however between the two you'll want to have more cloudy over anything else...

...there is no correct count down, and what is listed for the strain is more of a guideline. i'd say start from the first day you see medium sized hairs and go from there...

I know for sure that it is not in week 1 of flowering with as much bud as it has now. But thank you for the tips with the trichomes, definitely going to put that knowledge to use. I'm guessing I'm at minimum into the 4th week of flowering. So I will stop using nutrients the end of this week or next and begin flushing. Lots of the bigger fan leaves are turning yellow, but leaves surrounding buds look nice and green. I'm thinkin that's just part of the flowering process when little to no new Nitrogen is being added.

Learn when a plant is ready for harvest, not the number of weeks it is supposed to take. Strains often have a handful of phenotypes which act different to the next, weeks and days aside, it'll finish when it finishes. Much better to learn to read the plant than to just rely on the breeders info.

To me it seems like they've barely started budding, why on earth would you start flushing? flushing as it is is a highly controversial debate with many folks plain ignoring the practice. While for me all smoke tastes gash, i've never noticed any difference whatsoever from a flushed bud and a non-flushed bud.

Listen to Tip Top.. I ruined my 1st TWO harvest by going by their FLOWER PERIOD times... I think it always takes an extra week or two since we are not perfect. I would literally count the days.. and BOOM DAY 65 TIME TO HARVEST ! regardless ! and FAIL !

tip top toker said:

Learn when a plant is ready for harvest, not the number of weeks it is supposed to take. Strains often have a handful of phenotypes which act different to the next, weeks and days aside, it'll finish when it finishes. Much better to learn to read the plant than to just rely on the breeders info.

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Thanks Tip Top Toker & Rawbudzski. I'll just invest in a 30x loop, check on the trichomes to look for mostly cloudy with a few amber. I'll also not flush the plant but rather ease off on the nutrients and sweet when I notice the trichomes are a majority of cloudy. Here are some close up pics of the buds right now the first is of a couple of axial branches and the second my main cola. I'm using FF Ocean Forest in a 5 gal. bucket. Using the FF 3 pack of liquid nutes, but only used the Big Bloom and Tiger bloom since I'm growing from clone and soil had enough nutrients for the first 4 to 5 weeks. I use a brita filter to filter my water before adding nutrients, testing pH and adjusting to 6.0 - 6.5 pH. My plant gets about 7 to 8 hours of direct Southern California sun, and I water about every two days since she started to flower. Only concern is the yellowing of fan leaves working from bottom(oldest) up. It's not nutrient burn since all my buds leaves are green without any burnt tips what so ever, so I'm thinking either it's natural leaf drop due to flowering and directing nutrients where they are needed, or possible pH problem. But my buds look good so I'm not too worried as of now.