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Your attempting to turn this into another led vs mh conversation, BUT IT IS NOT THAT. We are discussing benefits of full spectrum which can include led lighting. Please keep this o. Topic so it doesn't get shut down like all the others.I worked for a grow store when I was going to college and it was the same arguments you see here about MH vs LED except for horticulture it was HPS vs Red/Blue LED vs full spectrum LED.
As far as pure growth was concerned, the HPS and full spectrum white actually performed worse per watt than the red/blue only with HPS being the worst. The best was if I remember correctly 25% W 25% blue and 50% red. It was real easy to AB cause they could use the same water, same room, same everything except for lighting and find out in a matter of weeks, not many months like with coral. The reason for this was red was the best for plant photosynthesis, but blue was necessary for stalk growth, and the white was only there so that workers could identify health issues with the plants that were drowned out if you have a sea of pink/purple. It did not improve growth per watt because the phosphor coating was less efficient than the blue and red leds in converting to PAR.
But you show the studies that LED increased plant mass increased by the same amount in 400W of LED that was done in 1000W of HPS or 800W of MH, they would pull the same lines that the MH diehards preach today. Things like "I've been doing this for 30 years and I know I grow more than your LEDs" without ever trying them or doing an AB test or "I switched from 5000W of halides to 2000W of leds and I got 10% less than I did on my last crop". Kind of like the typical "I replaced 250W halide with 200W of t5 with a single radion and my corals don't grow as well as they did before" without factoring in they are now giving their corals 30% less par than before and using 40% the wattage, but those who replaced 500W of MH and 400W of T5 with 3 radions saw similar growth at 60% the wattage.