I will also post this in my Red/Blue: Humble Beginnings thread, but not everyone is following it, so...
There is much confusion regarding light efficiency. I know I mentally labored over the spectrums I chose for the S 600, thinking I might be overdoing the blue spectrums, but it flowered quite well
Below is paraphrased from conversations with the owner/designer of Solar Spec LED panels.
I should have a 100 and a 260 within 2 weeks
The McCree curve tells us everything u need to know about the PAR spectrum.
Plants are very efficient at what they do to conserve energy for their main priority, which is to flower, fruit, or producing seeds.
(Me) While I agree, the 3000K only COB diys are vegging nicely, with minimal stretch
If you're talking about just growth then yes, because u only need ~8-10% blues. The thing is blue also acts similar to uv-b in stimulating resin production. Blue will also boost photosynthesis since it sets the pace for the reds to follow. Why not set a fast pace?
Yeah, they might be vegging ok, but they also don't have anything to compare to for those grows, right? Are any of them comparing it to another spectrum say like mine, which is a more balanced, and tune spectrum vs. a single band spectrum.
I can guarantee, a multi-band spectrum with more blues and green will out veg and flower it (3000K) all day long. You have to remember vegging is very important since it establishes the platform on which flowering will take place. At high intensive apps like ours, green is (as much) a priority as reds and blues.
Red is used mostly by the upper canopy, while the intra-canopy relies on the blue and green since they penetrate the canopy better than other bands. The light spectrum the intra-canopy receives is totally different, and closely resembles to what underwater plants get due to the weaker bands being filtered by the canopy and water. The reflected and diffused light contains mostly blue and green, since the other weaker bands are filtered by the canopy.
Because of this, plants have learned how to effectively use blue and green light in shaded region of the plant. This is a fact that's completely overlooked by most of the makes, with exception of a few, mostly the white ones.