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[Sarvaartha]

After the collapse of my last fort, it is time for a new one. Been on this one now for a couple of days, and it seems that the seeds are... unmanageable.

I have a stockpile for seeds only, barrels forbidden. I have plenty of bags that I had them create, but the order has devolved into an ocean of individual seeds. There is a separate stockpile for food that gives to this seed stockpile. There is also a separate drink stockpile in an attempt to keep it clean. The food and drink are nice and clean, but the seeds are everywhere. The one seed bag they ARE using is sitting idle at the brewery now since it can't be returned to the seed stockpile. Any suggestions on how to force them to use bags?

[WoobMonkey]

There are a few ways to deal with excess seeds:

1. Expand your farms.  Seeds in the ground aren't in your stockpile;

2. Cook them.  If you're producing enough of a surplus that your main (1st-world? hahah) problem is excess, you may find that dorfs like the flavour of seeds/spawns seasoning their meals;

3. Expand your stockpiles.  This one is pretty obvious - like a magic number square puzzle, sometimes all you need is an extra empty space to shuffle everything into order;

4. Apply patience.  Perhaps the [j]ob of hauling seeds is waiting for an available dorf to take care of it.  If idlers=0 at all times, it may just be a matter of not having a spare beard to collect up seeds;

5. Apply magma.  Because dwarfs.

Also, depending on the seed/spawn type, you may find that a quern, a millstone, or a screw press is the answer to what ails you.  There's always the option of just dumping the ones you don't want/need, to make space for the ones that matter to you.

Hope that helps.

[WhimsyWink]

the only thing that comes to my mind from your post is:  How many tiles in your seed stockpile?  I specify a type of seed given whatever I plant.  If you have loose seeds all over but have made bags, maybe your bags have gone into a finished goods stockpile and they cannot be taken for seeds.

[greycat]

I create a 2x6 (or similarly sized) seed stockpile right smack in the middle of my farm plots.  Underground seeds only, no barrels allowed, take from anywhere, nothing linked, and no underground seeds are allowed in any other stockpiles.

I just ignore the occasional seed-missing spam when someone grabs a seed bag from the stockpile to go collect more seeds.  It's not bad enough to bother me, though individual tastes vary.

From what you've described, it sounds like you don't actually have enough free bags for your seeds.  Remember that all those above-ground plants generate seeds too.  If you only have, say, 10 or 12 bags, that may not be enough once you've eaten a bunch of random above-ground fruits and vegetables and generated seeds from them.  Try making another 20 bags and see how that goes.

[Sutremaine]

Link your seed-producing workshops to a stockpile that doesn't permit seeds or containers. The seeds will stay in the workshop.

For loose seeds produced by eating, you can make a stockpile closer to the farms than the seed-producing workshops. Alternatively, you could leave them lying around until the traders come, and then use the distance from the depot to determine which seeds are in the workshops and which ones are lying around.

Depending on the size of your fortress and/or your efficiency in repelling sieges, you can rely on trading for booze barrels or muck roots and bloated tubers (neither of which produce seeds themselves). Mead can provide a small amount of seedless alcohol, though by itself it won't supply more than a few dozen dwarves.

Another option is to get up to the 200 limit on a seed type, so that no more are produced. Once you're up to the limit, you can use caravan-bought seeds on your farm plots so long as you never dip below 200 seeds. Plump helmets are the easiest for this, as the dwarven caravan brings both the seeds and the plant itself.

[vanatteveldt]

I also always have my seed stockpile in the middle of my farms and generally have no problems. Are the seeds brought to the pile at all? If not, it the pile set to "accept from anywhere"?

To manage the pure amount of seeds, look at DFHack 'seedwatch', which will allow seeds and plants to be cooked if the number of seeds is above a threshold.

[Sarvaartha]

I create a 2x6 (or similarly sized) seed stockpile right smack in the middle of my farm plots.  Underground seeds only, no barrels allowed, take from anywhere, nothing linked, and no underground seeds are allowed in any other stockpiles.

I just ignore the occasional seed-missing spam when someone grabs a seed bag from the stockpile to go collect more seeds.  It's not bad enough to bother me, though individual tastes vary.

From what you've described, it sounds like you don't actually have enough free bags for your seeds.  Remember that all those above-ground plants generate seeds too.  If you only have, say, 10 or 12 bags, that may not be enough once you've eaten a bunch of random above-ground fruits and vegetables and generated seeds from them.  Try making another 20 bags and see how that goes.

Winner! The bags in the stockpile were bags of sand, not empty bags. Traded for some leather and used that to make some sacks. I guess that's the benefit of confirming. Looked at my stocks though and it seemed like I had many more bags than I was using, but I guess they could have been all over the fort in barrels and the such. Thank you for all of the tips; definitely learned a couple of things 

[PaleBlueHammer]

I wonder if a simple quantum stockpile would work for seeds.  They'd be sitting out in the open though with no bags, would the vermin get too bad?

[Sutremaine]

The problem with that is that if seeds are in a stockpile, they will be put in bags if bags are available.

[AutomataKittay]

The problem with that is that if seeds are in a stockpile, they will be put in bags if bags are available.

Doesn't even need a seed stockpile to be bagged. I've been operating a farm complex without seed stockpile recently and any workshops that have seed get bagged unless it's set to give to another stockpile that don't accepts seeds. It's even happened with dwarves eat plump helmet without any seed stockpiles and free bags around.

I wonder if a simple quantum stockpile would work for seeds.  They'd be sitting out in the open though with no bags, would the vermin get too bad?

Surprisingly I've never seen bagged seeds affected by vermins, even ones long abandoned and forgotten for a decade or two with just a couple seeds in it and not in stockpile. I don't think I've seen seed rot either, since it's almost always in workshops now, and plant do rots if I cancels the job in middle without enough stockpile. Quantum stockpiles does works for seed, and won't give any trouble if you don't allocate any barrels, dwarves will bag it as soon as there're a free one.