40d Talk:Irrigation

Irrigation is not always needed for farming. i have my plot inside on sandy clay loam and it works fine. But: would the harvest maybe be better/faster with water? will check out. --Koltom 14:20, 10 February 2008 (EST)

Made a few changes to clarify.--Koltom 14:36, 10 February 2008 (EST)

Irrigation is only needed to be able to farm on rock. Soil layers don't need irrigation before you can farm on them. --Eagle of Fire 15:04, 10 February 2008 (EST)

The current version says you can "effectively" water an area 7x the size of the reservoir, but that doesn't seem to take into account the water that remains in the reservoir once the floodgate's opened which can lead to spots getting missed and people who're anal about this sort of stuff getting annoyed - maybe a 6x/5x figure should be used instead so we can get a depth average of 1.4-ish? --Sorenson 11 March 2008 (EST)

The article indicates that "some natural ponds replenish themselves at the beginning of spring." My research indicates that this is the result of water thawing. Any amount of water (x/7) becomes ice during winter (assuming your climate is cold enough). When melting, it becomes 7/7 deep water. Ripheus 02:57, 6 April 2008 (EDT)

Consequently... after irrigating land, is the muddied land subject to evaporation post-planting? Okita 03:28, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I've tidied up the article a lot, and made it much more newbie friendly (thanks also to Brandonazz), but I'm still a bit of a newbie myself so if I've made any factual errors I apologise. Hopefully it should be a lot easier to follow for those new to the game. --Daxx 17:55, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Is it possible to irrigate on constructed floors? I'm considering building a farm on top of a tower. Amenos42 00:12, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Does the irrigated land dry up eventually? Arvid 17:24, 6 November 2008 (EST)

If it does, it dries very, very slowly, over the course of years. Using 'dirt roads' can clean up the mud, however. Sadly, there does not seem to be any way to clean up your muddy engraved floors. --Navian 17:37, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Depends on the local temperature, how wet the area is, etc. I've had muddy fields dry out in a season. If there's at least 1/7 water (and it's not just muddy), and you want to get the water out, your best bet is a screw pump. --RomeoFalling 19:16, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Confusion about growing outdoor seeds in mountain biomes

I put in info about why plants won't grow in irrigated outdoor plots based on this message from Toady. I suspect that the user who found that this was also true for 'greenhoused' tiles was probably trying it in a mountain biome, but I didn't verify that I could make it work in other biomes. --Threlicus 17:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been successfully running an outdoor, irrigated plot in a desert biome for quite some time now, but I never realized this "bug" before because I had never tried it before in a mountain biome. 3lB33 17:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Toady One said that " if you settled in the mountains and there's a patch that's just grassless soil, it's probably a mountain biome square that doesn't accept any plant types." So as far as I can tell that means that the outdoor seeds will grow in mountain biomes, but just not on rocky tiles. 3lB33 18:11, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Are there non-rocky base tiles in mountain biomes? I don't know how to tell if a given tile is in one biome or another after the embark, and with the vast expanse of rock I've got in my mountain fastness here, I don't see any non-rock tiles that aren't at least plausibly the edge of the other biomes in my embark square... Threlicus 19:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

growth of Tower caps

Tower caps will grow on un-irrigated, underground soil just as much, as fast and as often as on irrigated soil - the catch is that you need a soil layer below the soil floor, just like for outdoor trees. Irrigating is only needed for stone. --Koltom 20:00, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, not again! Wrong! TC's grow MUCH more densely on irrigated soil, and do NOT need a soil layer beneath them! So, while an individual TC may(?) take just as long, the forest, overall, produces mass wood "faster" with irrigation. This is a DF myth that has been busted long ago, but still malingers like a bad smell.

Try it! Take one homogeneous area, irrigate half, go have dinner, come back and see the diff. And/or with half over stone or a mined-out area - makes NO difference to Tower Caps. (When you do, be careful of "damp soil" - over an aquifer, or near damp walls - they seem to like those better if unirrigated.)--Albedo 20:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)