re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience
No, never give up.
One thing though; if you have any dewberries left, why not take a small clone from the Problem Child and set it up under a CFL or something, that way you can see how it does under different lighting?
I've just taken six clones and have them in admittedly less than optimal conditions but I'm hopeful. I've kind of gotten a knack for being able to pull things around and get out of adverse situations. 3 of the blue dream and 3 of the super silver - they've all got a bud on them - that's how late they are to the party lol
Forgive me for not knowing the term, but what is a dewberry? And right now I only have one single space for Germinating, Cloning (which I haven't done yet), Vegging, and Flowering. I'm trying to work on some plans for a Veg space, but no luck as of yet.
I think that I'll try germinating my seeds the way you do, kinda. I'll scuff it up a tiny bit, but I'll be going straight into a rapid rooter tray with the heat mat and light. I'll be checking out how it does straight away with LED. You have a good idea going though. If you have the space and supplies you may as well toss another one in the mix, since the other one is behind at the moment.
KingJohnC uses a matchbox, which he lined with sand paper, 300 grit if I remember correctly. My nail file method is just an adaptation of his method, since I didn't have a matchbox handy. But he places the seeds inside, and just shakes/rolls them around for a short time, and the same effect is achieved.
Using rapid rooters is probably similar, but I'm not sure about the heat mat, especially with seeds, as I've read (again from KingJohnC), that sex during germination is partly influenced by temperatures.
The mat might be a necessity for cloning? I'm not sure, I haven't gone that route yet, but you might want to think it over before using heat with seeds.
Unfortunately, I don't have the space. I have room to grow about 3, in 5 gallon pots. However, throwing a 3rd plant in eliminates my ability to move the pots around easily, which reduces the training I can do, and would crowd them too much IMO.
I'd prefer to yield 2 ounces for each of 2 plants, over yielding 5 ounces from 3 plants. My interest and focus is on maxing out individual plant total yield, opposed to an only slightly higher total yield from more plants.
Looking great man! I've always thought the purple/red on the stems/stalk was a magnesium deficiency... Is it phosphorus?
Maybe you're right. I just thought I read before that the red/purple showing up on stems (and not on leaf petioles, which is considered normal) was a sign of a phosphorous deficiency. And the lightening of leaves between the veins was one of the signs of a magnesium deficiency.
Maybe someone can clear this up for us?
Thanks for the timely tutorial on planting a seed in soil. My grow is going to be no-till so the seed goes right into the soil the plant will spend its entire life in. The germination is my next big mystery. I consol myself with the knowledge that these are some of the heartiest plants on earth. Keeping it simple seems to be the best approach. I'm assuming you have good germination rates? Any ideas on germinating under CFLs? I'm wondering about lighting requirements to get the seed to break the soil barrier. As soon as it pops through I'm confident of my abilities to make it thrive. I have never germinated any seed indoors. Ever. I feel rediculously inadequate here.
Germination isn't really difficult, as the seed really does the work for us. It's the little extra things we do that increase germination rates, or at the very least, make us feel comforted knowing that we've done all we could to help them along before we start the germination process.
For me, the main focus is just keeping the soil moist at all times, or at least as often as I can, absolutely never letting it dry out, and the seed will do its own thing. I think the extra step I take with the emery board, just helps water penetration into the shell a little faster. So maybe for some seeds I cut down the time it takes to pop above the surface? At least I think it does.
I always try to keep thinks as simple as possible. I do add small things here and there, so I can learn as I go, but never a ton of new things at once, as it pushes me too far outside of my comfort zone, and that's when I tend to make mistakes when I'm not thinking clearly due to frustration or stress.
Sometimes it really helps me to sit and just calmly think about the grow in my head, going over things one at a time, especially like when the problems started. It's difficult not to get upset over something you spent a lot of time and effort on, but sometimes just taking a step back and thinking, as simple and silly as it sounds... sometimes that's what works.
My previous plants were all germinated under CFLs, and I personally like to have my seeds under 18/6 lighting as soon as they hit the dirt.
So far, I have 100% germination out of.. I think 12 seeds now? I killed 2 with nutes too early on my first attempt, I completely lost one seed while constantly digging it up to see if it was sprouting (This taught me patience lol), and one seed I used the nail file too hard, and half the shell came off before germination, I put it back on, and planted the seed, and a taproot did sprout! However something went wrong, and the seed later turned to mush, I assume too much water was being absorbed due to the missing shell.
But don't worry about it so much, you'll do just fine, it's not much different than germination outdoors. Each grower just finds a few extra things they like to do, before they let the seed do its thing.
Bonnie 
The training is already having some effect - you can see the tops leveling out even though she's smaller than the pot! 
