40d Talk:Soil

category Map tiles?

Is it worth having a map tiles category to relate all the individual (non construction) features of a map, such soil, sand, floors, trees, stairs, ramps, sky, unseen rock, etc.? --Markavian

"No seeds" vs silty loam

I have a map with silty loam, but when I build a farm plot on this soil it says I have no seeds to plant there... Is it the soil type or the lack of seeds? It doesn't make sense, because wild plants and trees can grow on that soil type. I'm looking into it.Schm0 06:36, 21 November 2007 (EST)

I'd have said lack of seeds it will only show the crops that you have seeds for. However if your talking outdoor farms then some crops will only grow in certain biomes. --Shades 06:50, 21 November 2007 (EST)

So silty loam is an acceptable soil type to have outdoor farming? I get the message "no seeds available for this location".Schm0 12:32, 21 November 2007 (EST)

I'm assuming you haven't modded anything and are playing as Dwarves. Dwarves cannot start out with any above-ground crops or seeds, so you indeed won't have any seeds to plant for any above-ground farm plots without first foraging or buying some. This isn't related to the type of soil you place it on; if it lets you build a farm plot, then you can plant the appropriate crops there as long as they fit the biome. Silty loam underground would be fine for planting plump helmets, or above ground fine for planting rope reed. --Hesitris 12:14, 2 December 2007 (EST)

The message "no seeds available for this location" means that nothing can grow at this combination of biome, light/dark status (or is it inside/outside?) and season. In other cases it lists all crops, that can be farmed, even if you don't have seeds.

This is untrue. I've personally embarked to an area with plenty of wild plants, and it still said "No seeds available". After gathering some plants, however, and obtaining seeds, this message no longer displayed. G-Flex 13:54, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Dorten 00:24, 9 January 2008 (EST)

Sandy Loam

All right, the list in the article is "possibly incomplete".

The question is, can Sandy Loam be farmed without being irrigated?

Maybe, even more importantly than the possibly incomplete list of soils which can be farmed without irrigation, there needs to be a list of soils which cannot be farmed by irrigation.

Of course, I would have chosen to do this by having an article for each type of soil saying simply:

Sandy loam is a type of soil.

It may (not?) be farmed without being irrigated.

(other properties: is it in layers? what icon does it use? etc)

Category:Soils which need irrigation or Category:Soils which do not need irrigation

GarrieIrons 07:28, 8 January 2008 (EST)

Anything can be farmed with irrigation. Irrigation creates the mud that is then farmed, not the floor under it. --Edward 20:21, 8 January 2008 (EST)

you do not need any irrigation to farm on any soil. it can ALL be farmed without irrigation Chariot 21:59, 8 January 2008 (EST)

The article already says loam (found near rivers) cannot be farmed without irrigation. What needs clarifying is that (modifier) loam also cannot be farmed without being irrigated. Which I guess to be the case but I don't source-dive so I won't present it as a fact. Maybe I was doing something wrong bcs I'm a {{newbie}} at this game.GarrieIrons 05:54, 9 February 2008 (EST)

loam CAN be farmed without irrigation, i even just made a new world and fortress to see, they farmed on it fine. likewise, (modifier) loam also CAN be farmed on. >>ALL<< soils can be farmed without irrigation, as said repeatedly before. the only thing that would stop it is being in a BIOME which doesnt support the plant, which is not a property of the soil. -Chariot 17:38, 9 February 2008 (EST)

Collapsing

Are sandy soils more likely to collapse? Is white sand the soil, the same as what is used to make glass? If so I guess I'm on a good map, I've got bituminous coal, trees, and sandy soil from one map edge to the other.GarrieIrons 05:54, 9 February 2008 (EST)

Soils are basically all the same, sandy or otherwise. They won't collapse any more than rock will. I believe the (color) sand soils (and only those soils) are used for glass, which includes white sand. LegacyCWAL 20:26, 15 February 2009 (EST)

If you're talking about caveins, right now cavein physics are just a placeholder. As long as a structure is conncected to the ground by some means, you're fine. You could hold up a nation over an ocean by a catwalk made out of soap. If you mean items made from the sand, there's no difference. Sand colors just make the environment prettirt to look at, and are probably logically derived from whatevr stone they eroded from. --Sensei: Last seen somewhere in the Basic Jungle of Terror 00:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Peat

Can it be farmed without irrigation? Peat is not mentioned anywhere on the wiki. Robje 15:30, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

is peat a soil? yes. therefore can it be farmed without irrigation? yes. it does need to be added to the soil list -Chariot 03:20, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

It is disappointing though - they don't let you use peat as a fuel, nor as a fertilizer, nor does it even come pre-fertilized when farmed. That all ought to be fixed. Dorf and Dumb 07:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no need in DF for "fuel" in that sense, just as wood doesn't burn, just as (unprocessed) coal doesn't burn - or if it does, there's nothing that uses it. "Fuel" is something that burns MUCH hotter than peat ever could, or even the hottest hardwood fire. Fuel is for metal working, not warming the hearth, which is about all peat can do. Where would you burn peat - in a dining room?--Albedo 09:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, see [1], [2], [3],[4], "peat-fueled. Note the last which says that peat contains energy equivalent to lignite or brown coal. I didn't manage quickly to find anything about peat fuel in Bronze Age applications, but at least from the 13th century to the modern day, peat has been a fair competitor to other fossil fuels for smelting. I know it's just a game, but it's just a shame to be walled in by preconceptions. Dorf and Dumb 07:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That is interesting - however, the only preconception you unburdened me of was that peat cannot be processed into coke (and thanks!). But when you say "for smelting", it's not the raw peat, but processed peat that they're talking about. Each of those articles discusses peat that has been processed into charcoal, and more than one acknowledges that raw peat, dug and dried, is no better than burning coal - which is not fuel in this game either. Maybe as an alternative to wood in furnaces to produce charcoal, sure - but not as "fuel", not as is.--Albedo 17:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Aluminum

I just found some Aluminum in Sandy Clay Loam, so I'm adding it to the list of minerals that can be found in soil.

I have a screen shot if needed. --Hkidnc 20:48, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

I just embarked on a map with hematite in the middle of a bunch of sandy clay, so I added that to the list. Perhaps minerals are just much more rare in soil? AtomicPaperclip 22:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I've seen copper bieng extruded into the soil. This is from a rock portion of a layer to a soil portion rather than completely in the soil. It's probably more common on coastlines since the soil generally goes a few layers deeper and the coastline itself (except for sandy beaches) consists of a thick band of rock. So its possible for metals to go into soil in this way.--Smjjames 23:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The information about what minerals spawn in soil is based off of raw game data. If you find anything else then either

something else caused it to spawn in by soil that you overlooked or
you are seeing some weird bug

If you are sure that you aren't looking at a something along the lines of vein sticking out of a nearby stone layer, please take a screenshot and put it in the bug reports section of the forum. Not here. VengefulDonut 23:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

After thinking about it for a bit, I did notice a couple rocks bordering the soil and I think it might have been spawned from the rocks, not from the soil. AtomicPaperclip 23:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

ores in soil

The only minerals that can be found native to soil are gold, cassiterite, and platinum.
  However, in unusual cases, it's always possible that a vein from a nearby stone layer
 could extend into the edge of a soil layer.

Why delete this? I'm not seeing the problem with the statement.--Albedo 21:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Mainly because the aforementioned minerals never occur in soil - they only occur in "alluvial" layers, which don't seem to actually exist as of 40d. --Quietust 21:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)`

I thought there was some discussion on that - that some "alluvial" aspects defaulted to "soil" - not sure which. Haven't seen enough soil to say one way or the other.--Albedo 23:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit unclear on this. In the 40d matgloss files, gold, cassiterite, platinum and all types of jade are listed as available in an "alluvial" environment. But there is no [ALLUVIAL] tag to be found in the stone_layer file (assuming that's where I should be looking). What's more, while gold, tin and platinum can be found elsewhere, jade is ONLY listed as alluvial. Does an alluvial layer exist, and if not, is the unavailability of jade atill an unresolved issue?Nemokara 07:15, 10 October 2009 (UTC)