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[Catharsis]

I think it would be neat if you could make a farm plot with a toggle for pasture mode so that when plants are fully grown they are not harvested so that you can set a pasture zone over the farm and get grazers to actually consume the plants. Maybe make it so when plants wither away they drop a single seed that if left on a farm plot tile long enough, replants itself.

Alternatively, make it so you can collect grass/cave moss seeds with an activity zone, and then plant those on a pasture farm plot, that self seeds after the initial planting, as well as giving the option to bring cave moss seed from embark, so you can get your livestock industry started before having to breach the cavern (not simply to avoid danger, but to avoid the inevitable forgotten beast rampage bringing scattered corpses and body parts, not to mention miasma, from breaching the caverns and then immediately sealing them up.)

Thoughts?

[Trappington]

A lot of farmers actually do this in real life with things like corn, so it makes a lot of sense.  Maybe certain types of plants, such as cave wheat (or oats if above ground) would speed the growth of young animals, adding some possible benefits to the use of this technique. 

[LordBaal]

I like the second option the most. Wouldn't it be kind of less complicated if we could make pastures workable by dwarves? I mean, just what you are describing but instead of making a farm and making a pasture over it, we simply make a pasture and assign some dwarf to plant some plants there?

Alternatively, once (and if) the workshop overhaul comes around and they become more like the current hospital and yet unreleased tavern, pasture farms, or cattle farms could be a "work shop" that would require not only a feeding pasture zone, but farmers workshops, stables and what not inside to work properly.

What do you think?

[Catharsis]

I didn't realize that was planned for workshops, sounds pretty cool and I think that would work great.

[LordBaal]

Is kind of planned to go down like that. So a carpenter workshop would be a room or area you designate and needs things like work tables, work benches, tools (hammers, nails, saws), cabinets to store them, and so on.

[cochramd]

This all sounds very interesting and like something that should be implemented. You could could farm pandas of all sizes with this if bamboo seeds were a thing. You could also use it with non-grazer herbivores so they don't have to eat food from the fortress's supply (non-grazer animals still need to eat, right?), and as a means of seed generation if there's excess.

[LordBaal]

Yes, non-grazer animals don't need to eat, yet. I expect them to need eating down the road.

[cochramd]

Well, nevertheless, new crops could be introduced that grow extremely fast but are unfit for dwarven consumption, so they exist solely for livestock to feed on.