v0.31 Talk:Farming

General

Placing a farm on rock

    Needs Soil or mud
    No Mud for underground farm
    Mud is left by water

Placing a farm on surface soil

   No Mud for underground farm
   Mud is left by water

Placing a farm on mud found in an underground complex

   <<No Error Message>>

So This is either a major bug, or a mechanics change and a minor text inconsistency.Doctorzuber 22:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a bug. You're supposed to be able to farm on soil. I'll try to track down the forum thread, one moment --Squirrelloid 22:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha, so saith the Baughn: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=51951.msg1123336#msg1123336

--Squirrelloid 22:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Who is but a lowly dabbling SDL coder and has not insight into the game code or Toady's intentions.--Birthright 15:31, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Toady confirmed it too, you realize. Twice.--174.113.156.80 01:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Quote from: Dr. A - "Farm plots built underground (Inside/Dark/Subterranean) on natural soil will not allow planting"

Reply from: Toady One - "I'm not sure yet. I never get a chance to look at it, despite wanting to look at it. The original idea was to require a soil wall beneath a mudless square for it to be farmable, and if it isn't that way, it's a bug. Either way, it is somewhat confusing, because you wouldn't be able to farm in one layer of soil. I'm not sure you should be able to, morally speaking, especially with the underground trees, but it's probably less confusing that way." from http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=62202.msg1424098#msg1424098

I shall give this some testing over the next few days to see if a farm on top of a soil wall will allow planting of underground crops without being muddied first.--Malibu Stacey 21:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Seeds can not be grown on non-soil, non-subterranean tiles

I recently attempted to follow the advice in the article, channeling out several tiles near a river, irrigating them, and building a farm plot on the muddied tiles. However, when I tried to set the field to be planted, all seeds (surface AND subterranean) are disabled, and the message "No seeds available for this location" is displayed. The soil layer, as it turns out, was only one tile thick, and even though the tiles are "above ground" (not even indoors yet, I haven't built a roof over them), they are ineligible for any seeds to be planted on... subterranean crops because the tiles are above ground, and surface crops because the floors are mud-covered diorite instead of one of the clay/sand/soil types.

So, be warned... attempting to create an indoor, irrigated surface crop farm will not work if you accidentally channel down to stone. Surface crops will not grow in mud-covered rock, only in soil (mud-covered or otherwise). --Tatterdemalian 22:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Have same problem... did you dig out the level below your "aboveground" farm? I did (z1 and z2 dug out) and I remember towercaps and the lot can't grow unless they have a floor tiles and wall below (z1 dug out but not z2), perhaps crops follow the same rules? I'll test this.--99.67.238.66 05:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I just encountered this issue (version 31.04) but in a slightly different context. I dug out four rooms underground in sand, did *not* dig out the tiles underneath, built 4 farms on the sand without irigating, and then got the message that that there are "No seeds available for this location", despite having just embarked with many seeds. Maybe I'll try tearing down the farms and irrigating first. --Frewfrux 17:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

DF2010 requires farms to have mud whether on rock or soil layers. Cheers--99.67.238.66 00:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Technically, it’s the bug that requires it (if I’m reading all the information correctly). It seems that DF 2010 is supposed to allow farms on soil regardless of mud. (Am I right, or is this actually intended behaviour?) I had thought that the bug was that you couldn’t build the farms without the mud, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. You can build the farms just fine, but the code doesn’t appear to “see” any valid seeds to plant after they are built.

I tore down my farms (successfully built on soil without mud), flooded the area, and then built them again and sure enough the farms now “see” the seeds I have. --Frewfrux 19:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought that farms not growing without mud underground was a purposeful change on Toady's part. I suppose I assumed that because of how subterranean trees only grow in muddied soil. Also you don't have to have mud, above ground farms accept all the correct seeds if on soil that issn't irrigated. --99.67.238.66 22:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I thought that the only reason mud was needed for the underground trees was because they were on rock, not soil. Regardless, after testing it out, here's what I found:

- You can *build* a farm on any soil (above ground or below)

- Only the farm built above ground will "see" any available seeds (assuming no mud)

- You can build an underground farm on soil and muddy the ground *afterward*

- You can build a farm on part muddied ground and part soil and it will be able to "see" available seeds. HOWEVER, your dwarves will only plant on the muddied part of the farm.

- Water both provides mud *and* washes it away. If you build an underground room with a hole in the ceiling and mark that hole with a "pond" zone so your dwarves bring water to it and dump the water in the room, you will see piles of mud appear on some of the tiles and be washed off of others (no idea what determines which of the two happen).

And that was the extent of my testing. --Frewfrux 01:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Finally got around to trying to build a farm on muddied soil above-ground with a natural wall on the next level down. Testing shows that no seeds can be used on such terrain. So for DF2010 above-ground farms must be built on soil (muddied or unmuddied) and underground farms can grow on any terrain as long as the tiles are muddy. Above-ground farms will not work on muddied rock tiles. I'll go ahead and add this to the actual page.--99.67.238.66 21:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

You can build a farm on part muddied ground and part soil and it will be able to "see" available seeds. HOWEVER, your dwarves will only plant on the muddied part of the farm. - This isn't exactly true. I just found out that if the top left square of the farm doesn't have mud, then NONE of the farm will activate. I muddied my farm plot, but missed two squares in the top left. rebuilt the farm and it didn't work; rebuilt the farm slightly smaller so that the top left corner was muddied and the farm turned on. 71.202.179.67 19:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge

I don't see why we need a separate page for Farm Plot and Farming. Merger anyone? Kenji 03 12:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, labors are typically described in their respective skill page. In this case, Farmer --Eagle0600 13:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Both pages exist as full pages in the 40d namespace, in addition to a farmer page. This suggests that there is sufficient material for all three pages, although someone would need to spend more time reviewing how the topic space was divided in 40d to figure out why. --Squirrelloid 13:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Farming describes the concept, plant uses, importance, possibilities and caveats; Overview. Farm plot goes right down to 'key-pressing' and 'cursor-moving', that is, details and step-to-step. Ultimately it is an article on a building. I don't recall ever using the page Farm plot, but I think we should keep the 2. Looking over the old versions, I think the distinction should be made clearer, though. --Birthright 14:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but with all the new info and users this approach seems not viable for now. --Confused 18:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Farming Chart

General farming flowchart.

I found this chart to the right in the 40d farming page. I was just wondering if it is still current, so we can put it in the current page.

As far as I can tell, yeah, it's still accurate. I haven't run into any changes in this part of the game, and I've always found this chart to be exceedingly helpful... Though a little messy. Perhaps we could do up a cleaner version of it for the new page? --Kydo 07:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

There, how's this? --Kydo 08:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a similar table in DF2010:Crop. A table/chart for farming should preferably illustrate the processes of farming and not (re)iterate the specific crops and products. --Nahno 12:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that the only improvement old farming process flowchart could utilize is grouping plants, drinks and products that have all options identical into blocks and not just color-coding by type and an arrow to uses. It may be harder to do with partially-overlapping groups though.--Another 13:29, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Harvesting

Probably it ought to be noted that if your dwarves aren't quick enough to harvest a ripe bit of crop, it will wither and become refuse (happens to me when I set "Only Farmers harvest").--FleshForge 09:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Indication of buggy behaviour

It's been reverted multiple times whenever someone adds the "due to a bug" statement, so I'll state my reason on why this should be made clear: new players. If someone new plays DF, they may think the irrigation process is too complex if they do it first thing. Like many of our first fortresses, farming is supposed to be a long term goal (fortress 1: farm plot built; fortress 2: plump helmet planted; fortress 3: sustainable farming; fortress 4: irrigation done) and forcing it onto them isn't a good idea, considering that it is a bug, and Toady has stated he'll look at it eventually. If nobody comes up with a good reason not to add this information, I'll re-add it. --Dree12 19:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody commented, I'll re-add the bug notice. --Dree12 20:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Problem with farm plot sending jobs

I made a 22 tile farm plot on muddied sand, a single tile in the corner was not muddied. It still let me build the plot, but until I resized the plot to make it not include that tile, my farm plot would not send jobs out.-Wafl 21:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)