v0.31 Talk:Irrigation

Just few notes:

• You can make farms in 1/7. There is no need to wait till it evaporates.
• River does not have to be above farm, it can be on same level. You just dig straight into it, with floodgate installed in the tunnel and lever pulled. RusAnon 20:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Farms in deeper water

My farmers do not seem to be bothered by my farms being 2/7 deep in water (poor water control). Anyone else seen similar? --131.111.254.209 10:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Dwarves can walk through 1/7 and 2/7 water covered tiles, but cannot work that actual tile, so no planting seeds or harvesting plants until the water evaporates. The plants aren't actually bothered by water depth, so they will mature despite being under water. --Darkstar 17:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Dwarves can create farms, plant, and harvest in 1/7 water. True in 40d and true in 2010.
—0x517A5D 20:10, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I typed that poorly. Dwarves can walk through low water covered tiles, but will not work a tile if it has 2/7 or more water in it. That is what I meant above, but didn't communicate it properly. --Darkstar 02:27, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Due to a bug

Can someone confirm if this is a bug? Otherwise, I'm assuming it's an intentional change and removing that comment.Studoku 02:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Yup. Baguhn confirmed it here: [1] --Dree12 01:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Toady's comment on this was much more vague - rewording it. --Old Ancient 05:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Designating a pond

I'm trying to follow the instructions for bucket irrigation, and I can't designate a pond either in the open space above the farm, or in the stone floor of the farm itself. The only place I seem to be able to designate a pond is over the brook, which makes no sense at all. Running 0.31.03. -Greycat 21:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I found the trick. I could only designate a one-tile pit/pond zone on the ramp leading down to the farm. I couldn't designate anything on the farm itself. After designating the pit/pond, you have to press [P] and [f] to toggle it from pit to pond. -Greycat 14:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Exceptional rating

As this article contains quite a lot of information, I've added the appropriate category, and the tileset criterion does not currently appear to be a requirement for Exceptional quality, I have moved this article up from Fine. --FunkyWaltDogg 14:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. Thank you everyone who helped make this article.-Studoku 03:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Exact Calculation

Why the exact calculation for the water above a farm? Why not flood a room, then pull a lever to open a hatch to a cistern below the farm? I have just tried this, seems to work fine. Fephisto 00:17, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It is neater if you don't need to drain the room afterwards. Flooding it and then draining it is much easier though, though i personally run the excess water off the map or into the caverns. Dangerous Beans 08:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Pond Method Not 100% Reliable

This needs more testing, but here are the steps I took and their results:

1) dug out a 5 x 9 room in stone (not soil)
2) added doors to the room and locked them tight
3) channeled two hole in the ceiling (evenly spaced) and marked them as ponds
4) dwarves used water from a well to (slowly) fill the room

Initial results: watered tiles showed mud. Eventual results: only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the watered tiles contained mud (but all were marked as damp). I watched the process carefully after noticing this and it seems that occasionally the added water was “washing away” the piles of mud. Dwarves were not cleaning the mud away as the doors to the room were locked (not that they do this normally, but it was one of my initial thoughts). I don’t know exactly why this happened or what caused the mud to go away (except that I assume it was the water washing it away). It could be that my source of water (a well) was ‘clean’ water and not muddy water (as all water from wells is) but then I don't know where any of the mud came from if that's the case. Can anyone confirm this? (This was done in version 31.04) --Frewfrux 16:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this happen quite often in 31.x. Water waves will occasionally "wash away" mud. It seems to happen the most when 2/7 flows over a tile that has 0/7 tile with mud or a 1/7 tile with mud. But I've seen 5/7 washing over lower tiles and wiping out mudded tiles. The problem is that after a tile has been "washed" clean by a wave, I can't get it to mud at all ever after. I have to reset the tile by constructing a floor on it and then deconstructing the floor, reseting the natural tiles to unworked.

I rarely have this trouble with bucket brigading. That's because I zone my farm tiles with pond tiles individually and turn them off once they have 1/7 water on them. Precise placement, and it never washes away any muddied square. But I've seen it happen when I didn't deactivate the pond fast enough, and other dwarves dumped water on it, creating a moving wave of 2/7. -- Darkstar 02:13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Irrigation: How often

How often do I need to irrigate my farms? Only once, for the entire life of the plot? Or should I run some water over them every year or something?--208.81.12.34 13:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You should only have to irrigate one time, usually. As long as the mud is on a rough floor (not a constructed floor), the dwarves will not clean it up, and it should stay there forever. --Greycat 14:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Bucket Irrigation - perhaps use bridge?

The article says that the waterable rectangle should be 2 tiles wide or long, otherwise the dwarves won't be able to access the center from the ledges. I channeled out a 8x8 space above my future farm area, and filled up the area below. I used one tile wide, ledge-to-ledge long (total of 4, for 8x8) retractable bridges to access the inaccessible parts. It's a little more work, but it's better than re-flooring the upper channeled area. I hope you guys won't mind if I add to the article with this in mind. --89.134.184.93 17:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
(after re-reading article) On second thought, I won't edit the article itself, I'll just let this comment hang here. --89.134.184.93 18:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

No need to irrigate underground farms placed on soil?

I've been digging out farms without having to irrigate them if the area I dig out is some kind of soil. Is this a bug, or is it an intended change somewhere along the line? It does seem to contradict the whole "Farms cannot be built on underground tiles (rock or soil) unless those tiles have been muddied" thing.