v0.34:Seed

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v50.14 · v0.47 · v0.34.11 · v0.31 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Looking for information on world generation seeds? See Advanced world generation.

Seeds are used in farming to grow crops. They can be stored in bags (100 seeds per bag), which can in turn be stored in barrels or pots (10 bags per barrel/pot). Different seed types can't be mixed within a bag, so storing 10 seeds, one each of 10 different types, would require 10 different bags.

Seeds can be brought on embark or obtained by trading. They can also be produced from plants (acquired by plant gathering or growing the respective crops). When a plant is eaten or used in brewing, milling or plant processing, it leaves one or two plantable seeds (see below for details). The exceptions are valley herb, bloated tuber, kobold bulb, and muck root, which will not leave behind seeds after processing. Cooking plants in a kitchen will not produce seeds.

Seed Production

Most seeds are produced by brewing (at a still), milling (at a millstone or quern), processing (at a farmer's workshop), or by dwarves eating the plants raw (uncooked). Some seeds can also be gained by plant gathering or purchased from traders. Below is a table showing the various seed production methods for all seed-producing plants.

In order to prevent your fortress becoming cluttered with thousands of seeds, there is a cap of 200 seeds per type of plant. Seed producing activities will only produce seeds if your fortress contains fewer than 200 seeds of that type. You can exceed the 200 seed cap by buying seeds from caravans, and seed production will restart when your stocks fall below 200.

Seed Production Methods

Plant Name	Type	Brewing	Eating Raw	Milling	Gather Plants (Biome)	Process Plants
Plump helmet	Food/Drink	Dwarven wine	X		Subterranean, Wet (?)
Pig tail	Drink/Cloth	Dwarven ale			Subterranean, Wet	X
Cave wheat	Food/Drink	Dwarven beer		X	Subterranean, Wet
Sweet pod	Food/Drink	Dwarven rum		X	Subterranean, Wet	Barrel
Quarry bush	Food/Oil				Subterranean, Wet (?)	Bag
Dimple cup	Dye			X	Subterranean, Wet
Prickle berry	Food/Drink	Prickle berry wine	X		Above Ground, Dry
Wild strawberry	Food/Drink	Strawberry wine	X		Above Ground, Dry
Longland grass	Food/Drink	Longland beer		X	Above Ground, Dry
Rat weed	Food/Drink	Sewer brew	X		Above Ground, Wet
Fisher berry	Food/Drink	Fisher berry wine	X		Above Ground, Wet
Rope reed	Drink/Cloth	River spirits			Above Ground, Wet	X
Blade weed	Dye			X	Above Ground, Dry
Hide root	Dye			X	Above Ground, Dry
Sliver barb	Drink/Dye	Gutter cruor		X	Above Ground, Dry, Evil
Sun berry	Food/Drink	Sunshine	X		Above Ground, Wet, Good
Whip vine	Food/Drink	Whip wine		X	Above Ground, Dry, Savage

Note: All "Above Ground" plants will not be found in freezing environments (tundra, glacier, or mountain biomes). Also, the "Subterranean" plants will not grow randomly underground until a cavern is breached, then their spores will spread throughout your fortress and they will begin growing on any subterranean soil or muddied rock.

Note: In case you are confusing about getting spam of messages like "Urist McFarmer cancels Plant Seeds: Needs %seedname%", while you are sure that you have enough seeds, no burrow restrictions or closed doors, the reason for this is most likely this: the haulers see a seed somewhere and take the whole seed bag from stockpile to go pick it up, making the farmer cancel his job. The problem is exacerbated when barrels are used on the seed stockpile, because the dwarves will additionally store the seed bags inside barrels, blocking even more seeds during each hauling job and extending hauling jobs by first bringing the seed bag to the seed, then returning to the stockpile, picking up the barrel to bring it to the bag, storing the bag in the barrel and only then bringing the barrel bag to the stockpile. During all this time, the seed barrel and all its contents will be blocked from access by any other job.

You can simply disallow barrels from the stockpile, which requires a somewhat larger stockpile but makes seed collection jobs much shorter and less disruptive. Bags will always be used to store seeds in stockpiles, you cannot forbid that.

Another way to deal with this problem is this: set up 2 seed stockpiles, with the larger (primary) one set to only accept items from links. Set the secondary (smaller) pile to take from anywhere and give to the main stockpile. Now, when a seed showes up in your dining room or brewery, the dwarves should try to put it into the secondary pile first, which shouldn't have anything in it for long (so no bag for world tour). Once the seed arrives in the secondary stockpile, a new job will be created, moving the seed over into the main stockpile. Now the bag will be picked up to move that seed into it, but if the piles are next to each other it should only be in transit for a few seconds reducing the likelihood of cancellation spam.

As a workaround, you can finally make use of the peculiarities of stockpile commmands: setting a stockpile to "take" from a mill, still or farmer's workshop will prevent the workshop from sending its products to any other stockpile. If the stockpile in question doesn't accept seeds, all seeds produced by the workshop will stay in the building, readily accessible to farmers. This can be handy if the workshop is directly adjacent to the farm plot, but can cause cluttering of the workshop if other products like barrels of booze aren't moved out of the shop regularly.