40d:Farm plot

A farm is a building that allows dwarves to grow plants from seeds. Plants can be used for food or to brew alcohol. Farms built outside have completely different crops to farms built inside.

In large fortresses, a farm is the most compact way of producing food. Early forts can subsist with herbalists collecting plants from bushes outside but that is insufficient to support large populations. (Note that plants gathered by herbalist can be processed for the seeds necessary to set up an outside farm.)

See the article on crops for details on the conditions needed to grow the available plants.

Building the farm plot

Farm plots must be built on a suitable location and require a dwarf with the farming (fields) skill enabled to prepare.

• Farms can be built on soil, sand, silt, clay or loam.
• To build a farm on rock you must first make it muddy by irrigation.

Where farms can't be built:

• Over trees, saplings, shrubs, boulders or constructed objects (roads, floors, etc). (Constructed floors, however, are acceptable if muddy).

To place a farm plot enter the build menu and select farm plots. Use the u and k keys to expand the width and height of the plot, and m and h to decrease the size. When the plot is the desired size, and in the right position, pressing Enter will place it. A free dwarf with the grower skill should then start clearing out any rubble or other impediments away from the farm plot. Trees inside the plotted area must be cleared by a wood cutter before you lay it out or that tile will be skipped. Shrubs and saplings must also be cleared beforehand, even already dead ones. Living shrubs may be gathered by an herbalist while dead shrubs and saplings may be cleared by dwarves repeatedly walking over the area. Boulders may not be plotted over at all, even after smoothing.

Growing plants

See farming.

Suggested size

A 5x5 plot should be enough to feed a starting fortress; 5x10 should be enough to feed a full fortress. Make sure to have at least one dedicated grower, as planting skill significantly impacts output. Much smaller plots can serve smaller forts, and if you supplement them with plant gathering, hunting, fishing, or trading they can become smaller to the point of non-existence.

Try to leave a little extra space in underground farm rooms for farmers to stack spare boulders. Stones that get moved under doors in a farm will keep them open, causing potential flooding problems if you need to irrigate.

Caveat

If you build a farm plot with tiles both above-ground and below-ground, it will show as one or the other, but a farmer trying to plant an underground crop in the field will fail and stop working if he first goes for an above-ground tile, or vice versa, making such a plot frequently unusable.

See also

• Farming, for a complete guide
• Irrigation
• Tile Attributes

Farming FAQ
How do I build a farm?
How large a farm do I need?
What is the best crop?
How do I manage my seeds and crops?
What does "Reserved Barrels" and "Reserved Bins" mean?
Why are crops sometimes displayed with red writing?
What do I do with these inedible crops?
What does the option "Fallow" mean?
My dwarves will only farm on a small part of the fields, why is this?
How do I make absolutely sure my farm plot is all set to produce crops?
If I don't see any dwarves working my farm plot, does that mean there's something wrong?
Can you grow surface crops on multiple z levels in a tower if the floors are glass even though there's soil on the glass?
What is the "seas fert" option for?
How do you create a custom stockpile that accepts only prepared foods?
How do you successfully breed and utilize animals(grazing, non-grazing and poultry)?
How often do you need to irrigate your farm fields?
Having banned seeds from the kitchen, how to prevent dwarves from eating them raw?
Why do my planters keep complaining they have no seeds?
Why won't my animals breed?
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