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v0.31:Farming
Farming is the action of growing Template:L for Template:L, Template:L production and Template:L manufacturing. While small forts can easily be sustained by plant gathering, Template:L and trading, farming is vital to large settlements.
Farming is done at a farm plot building (b-p, resize with umkh). It requires Template:L and a worker with the "Farming (Fields)" Template:L enabled.
Depending on where the farm plot is constructed, different crops may be planted; Farm plots built Template:L are not suitable for the crops grown on Template:L farm plots and vice versa. Note that the attributes Inside , Dark , Outside and Light are of no relevance.
See the article on Template:Ls for details on the conditions needed to grow the available plants.
Introduction to Farming
After building a farm plot building (b-p, resize with umkh), you must select which crops to plant there.
Press q and move the cursor over the farm, you will see a list of crops you can select to grow in the current season. To move to plan for crops to be farmed in different seasons use a,b,c, or d. You can select a farm to be fertilized but starting out you won't have the necessary items to do so, and it's largely unnecessary.
You must have the appropriate Template:Ls to plant a crop there. To easily see how many of each seeds you have you can go to the Kitchen menu z right Enter. Plump helmets are a good beginning crop for indoor plots; outdoors wild strawberries are a good choice. Check the Template:Ls page for details on different seeds. Only some plants are edible so make sure the seeds you're using will produce food. It's often a good idea to pick a seed which produces a plant which can be Template:Led. This will create Template:L and also give you a seed to plant again next season.
Instructing a plot to remain fallowz during a particular season will instruct dwarves not to plant in that plot during that season.
Subterranean Farming
Underground farms are required to grow the 6 "dwarven" plants, including the Template:L. Seeds and spawn available at embark are for underground crops only.
Underground farm plots must be placed on either soil or mud, however, a bug is currently causing farming to only work on mudv0.31.12. Muddying the ground means to temporarily cover it with water (common methods include a bucket brigade or controlled flooding by temporarily diverting a river or pool, using a floodgate or door), or find a muddied area in a Template:L) (each tile underneath the farm plot must be muddied). Most caverns have entire open areas which will be permanently covered in mud, though beware the underground inhabitants when farming. Any underground surface can be used to create a farm plot, provided you muddy it first.
Underground Template:L will most often have multiple Template:L to build Subterranean plots on. Note: Underground caverns are very dangerous places, it would be a good idea to have a Template:L guard the farm and to set up walls around the area.
See Template:L for more.
Above Ground Farming
Above ground farming is basically the same as underground farming, with the simplifying distinction that above ground plots typically do not require preperations. However, there are some complications.
The first complication is that seeds cannot be chosen at embark. They can be bought from caravans (Template:L or Template:L); or above-ground plants can be gathered using the Template:L designation, and then Template:L, Template:L, Template:L or Template:L directly (depending on the plant) to produce seeds.
The second complication is that the farming must be done on Template:L. Typically, it is done above ground, which is dangerous (due to aggressive animals, ambushes and sieges). However, any land which has ever been exposed to sunlight becomes permanently marked as "above ground". So, if you have multiple Z-layers of soil, you can channel some above-ground land, remove the resulting ramps, then construct a floor above, where the surface once was. The (now dark and protected) lower soil will still be suitable for farming Template:L, Template:L, Template:L, and anything else you may find.
Above ground farms built on rock layers (muddied or otherwise) will show the message "No seeds available for this location", and you will not be able to plant anything in them.
Some crops require a particular temperature range to grow; so although it may be possible to plant them in any season, to obtain optimal usage of farm plots it may be necessary to coordinate planting with seasonal temperature variations.
Farm plots in action
Once a farm plot has been built and crops have been selected for the current season, dwarves with the Template:L labor enabled will begin planting the selected seed. The higher a Dwarf's grower skill in planting, the more plants will be harvested from each seed planted. The farming labor is fairly low in priority, so if you want a full time farmer, it is best to disable all other labors.
Plants take time to grow, depending on their type. Once a plant is fully grown, a dwarf will harvest it. By default, any dwarf will do this. Harvesting plants is not affected by any skill, although it provides a small amount of grower experience. Plants that remain in the field for too long will wither. These plants will eventually rot away, but do not currently due to a bug.Bug:1280
Depending on the number of growers and their experience and the rate at which the plant grows, not all squares of large plots may be used.