@Stephenj37826 IF you shave of 8+ days then perhaps yes, but in reality anecdotal evidence indicates it's more like 3-5 days at best. And then only based on mostly vague claims like "on previous experience" or "other factors might have had an influence as well". So it might not have any meaningful impact at all. When Citizen's own PAR measurements show that their 90 CRI COBs produce 9% less PAR light than the 80 CRI ones, is that really worth it?
I wonder what Rahz's side-by-side test shows though. Should be more apparent if the difference is more than a few days if they are growing side by side.
I tried far red myself (albeit with FR leds) and the difference wasn't big enough to really say that it was the far red or just a normal fluctuation between grows. I had a bigger impact (ie significantly bigger than the margin of error) in flowering duration by adding more P to the nutrients.
Either way, I don't like FR during veg phase and especially not during the flowering switch. Really don't like the added stretch. So I'd rather go for FR leds anyway instead of wasting PAR light for more FR in the COBs. It's the whole reason why people go through the bother of switching out their HPS and MH bulbs during a grow.
Tests did show that tomatoes receiving extra FR light were sweeter than ones without. I would like to try that difference still. but that was with FR doses like in sunlight. So with 1:1: ratio's of red and far red or 2:1 at the least. COBs only emit tiny amounts of FR compared to red.