Stowandgrow and Skunkdoc, I do believe the sun is a better spectrum for growing medical grade cannabis than HPS spectrum. The downside is the rain and humidity (unless you have a greenhouse). I suspect the reason that LED bud has more terpenes is due to the increased output in the deep blue range and also the lack of infrared. All HID bulbs have a spike of output in the infrared region (825nm) and the sun has plenty of IR as well. The glass in a vented hood removes heat but it cannot block the radiant IR. I suspect that to some extent the IR "cooks" some of the flavor out of the terpenes. Anyway that is all just my conjecture and anecdotes so you have to take it for what its worth. I believe we will learn more about this as we go forward. Luckily with LED you can test it out on a very small scale if you are curious.
the reason i ask mate is because currently it is white leds that folk are mostly using with some reds
it would seem that finding the so called perfect spectrum has been abandoned in favour of using the most efficient diodes
many led models are out there still using only red and blue .. far from full spectrum and sunlight
since sunlight is now the model that current led like area51 tend to follow with their all white lights
do you think these older red and blue models of led are still better than hids
rather than saying all leds are going to produce better quality bud than hps
can you be more specific
do you believe the Chinese models of led would produce better quality bud than hps
i think you are right in one sense i would say plants grown under metal halide and hps together tend to look more robust and it makes sense the more towards sunlight you go the better it should be
growing with the narrow spectrum of hps i am willing to believe that something could be missing
not sure what this something is though because i am happy with my hps bud
in your own opinion which makes more difference to flavour
switching from chem soil/hydro to organics
switching from hps to led
peace