How far along is my plant?

Here's my story:

I'm at day 53 of a northern lights autoflower grow in an aerogarden. It's my first grow and I decided to make it as simple as possible. I have one plant using the stock nutes from the AG and a few side lights that I had sitting around.

Here is my journal: https://www.rollitup.org/blogs/243633-vanguard.html

Here're my problems:

Being a first timer, I don't know what the plant should look like at this stage.

My main problem is that nirvanashop (where I got my seeds) has been getting reports of their autoflowering plants not flowering automatically. Some people have been reporting that they had to change the lights to 12/12 to force the plant to flower, which would mean another 7-9 weeks if I get started now.

Now i'm paranoid that there's something wrong with my plant and I have been completely oblivious to it since I don't know what to look for.

I'm looking for someone to evaluate the plant and tell me if it's still in the veg stage, or if it's in preflower or if it's fully flowering and I just have no idea.

I was also told to top the plant and maybe even do some LST, but I don't know if the plant is too far along to do that or not. I read that topping should be done after the 5th node is grown and my plant currently has 10 nodes. Is it too late to top?

How's my dude doing and what the hell should I do next?

Pix:

Thanks!

It looks like it's starting it's Flowering dance..... Give it another 2-3 weeks If it ain't rolling the buds on then.... I'd Go Photoperiod 12/12 ...At worst you'll end up with a longer flowering But Probably much larger yielding auto variety

yea if your that fr into the plants life cycle and it still not budding up youve probably got hit with the duds I would filp that switch now and start flowering them. IMO good luck brother

yeah i would do the same. i would switch to 12/12 and let her go. you got a lot of bud sites and its a good size. your plant is showing preflowers cuz it hit maturity and if its not doing its auto thing by now it might need help by switching the lights. good luck

i wouldnt do any topping or lst at this point as your plant is going to start using energy for bud growth instead of veggie growth. go get blooming nutes and molasses. us the molasses 2 tblsps in a two liter soda bottle of water. water with that and it will really help.

looks healthy....and there are a lot of autos..that dont autoflower...nirvana has the worst strains as it comes to that.i would put it 12/12 now....need to take into account the stretch that happens during flower...the longer it vegs...the bigger it will get when it flowers....all the autos ive done was done at or around where you are now.guess i was one of the lucky ones that the seeds did autoflower...only problem was they flowered at 12 days old...so didnt get very big.but you do have preflowers...and its def a girl...so thats a plus...but get them into 12/12 before it outgrows your grow space

Its doing great right now,
post some pics of it in a couple of weeks.