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[Hyndis]

I've found that its easier to just not really worry about seeds at all.

I have many farm plots, each devoted to growing only a single crop. Food stockpiles are also divided up by crop, so plump helmets only get a 5x5 storage space. No more. Seeds are all thrown into the same seed stockpile near the kitchen.

I have my refuse areas to not accept plant refuse. When the 5x5 plump helmet stockpile is full, the crops are still harvested, but the plants are not moved anywhere. They just rot in the field.

This keeps seed storage down to a minimum while keeping food production going at full steam the entire time. You need surprisingly few farm fields and you can use many planters. At the turn of a season they will all rush down, plant the fields, then wander off until the crops are grown. If its less than efficient, so what? I get more seeds than I know what to do with. And I have my kitchens cooking plants, which destroys the seeds, and still thousands of plants rot in the fields every year.

[betamax]

Yeah, I often end up with far too many seeds. Next time, I'll take a lot less, and possibly try growing the plants for more than one season each.

[decius]

I like to use several 3x3 plots for underground crops, with a complicated matrix to keep each crop growing for exactly the same amount of plot-seasons each year. Then I put a 2x2 plot for each AG plant I want, and call it good.

As far as prepared food goes, I just keep expanding the food stockpile, and keep it close to the kitchen.

As a side note, do you know of any easy way to, for example, brew some of my sweet pods, turn some to sugar, and turn the rest into syrup? The best way I've got so far is to stop brewing sweet pods, count the harvest, and forbid what I don't want milled, mill, unforbid, then process (to barrel), then turn brewing on.

Ideally, I want to keep all the buildings doing something all year, and I hope to be able to just leave the buildings on repeat and have the dwarves do their thing, but I end up with lots of Rum and no syrup, or some other non-ideal situation when I do that.

[Sphalerite]

Interesting tactic.  How do you move the Prepared Meals to keep them from rotting, and keep your Kitchen(s) from getting cluttered up?  I find those to be the bottlenecks for any prepared food Trade approach.

Early on, before I have dedicated food haulers, it takes some micromanagement.  I watch the kitchen and only set a new batch of food to be produced once the kitchen has been cleared.  Once immigrant waves have provided me with some peasants, I set them to only food and refuse hauling and set the kitchen to auto-repeat.

Also, I put the kitchens on the western side of the fortress.  I'm not completely sure, but it seems that when given a choice between multiple jobs of equal priority, a dwarf will choose the westernmost one.  Putting the kitchen to the west of other food-producing shops like the farmer's workshop or the still seems to cause the dwarves to prioritize putting those syrup roasts into storage over hauling wine or syrup barrels.  Also, I always have dedicated prepared-food-only stockpiles surrounding the kitchens.

[Megaman]

lol, I usaully embark in forests and plant longland grass(or other plants that seem to be primaraly for brewing) and then a plump helmet farm,2 types of booze do pretty well.

[Doppel]

Yep, i'm a syrup roaster to, at first it was kinda difficult to balance the process to barrel > cook syrup > have barrels for booze > have seeds for planting> have barrels to make syrup again > etc... process, but now i have the hang of it and pretty much never have tons of syrup taking up valuable barrel space.
Just a legendary grower, thresher, brewer and a good (does anyone know of a good way to get a legendary cook fast?) cook is all it takes, and a still next to a farmer workshop with a kitchen next to that. (minimal amount of barrel hauling)
Now i even mix it up with Quarry bush leaves and pigtails to provide for its bags, and for booze. In fact i might think of simply skipping plump helmets next time, they helped me out greatly when i was more of a novice, now they just take up place and aren't as nicely rotated and used as the other plants, also they might get eaten instead of superior food (to continue the process) and meat anyways. I also don't use dimple dyes, i use emerald dye, or import it from the humans. (like the green better then the difficult to see dark blue, and red just takes away from blood)

[Albedo]

(does anyone know of a good way to get a legendary cook fast?)

Don't know how "fast" you are talking about, but go with simple meals, 2 ingredients.  They are faster than the others. 

I might even suggest forbidding larger stacks and use that to get rid of small stacks and cheap raw foods, and then dumping the unwanted simple meals - then unforbid the large plant stacks/expensive foods and forbid the small/cheap, and make your high-quality meals, and then back again.

A bit of a pain - maybe more management than you want to do. But the simple meals are the way.

[Sutremaine]

Ideally, I want to keep all the buildings doing something all year, and I hope to be able to just leave the buildings on repeat and have the dwarves do their thing, but I end up with lots of Rum and no syrup, or some other non-ideal situation when I do that.

There's no ideal solution, but there are a couple of things you can try in order to minimise the problem.

1. Small stock of sweet pods right next to the mills and well away from any other freely accessible millables. The first thing milled will be something fairly random, but after that the dwarf should go straight for the sweet pods. You'll need to do this every time you want some sugar, but it can be set up by the manager and then forgotten about.

2. Get your sugar from the caravans. You won't get much, but there's no messing around. Mill products from trading always come in bags of 10, which might or might not be useful to you.

3. Set up a sweet pod only stockpile around the brewing area so that the sweet pods are closest to the stills, and restrict and unrestrict the brewing of sweet pods as necessary.

[decius]

Ideally, I want to keep all the buildings doing something all year, and I hope to be able to just leave the buildings on repeat and have the dwarves do their thing, but I end up with lots of Rum and no syrup, or some other non-ideal situation when I do that.

There's no ideal solution, but there are a couple of things you can try in order to minimise the problem.

1. Small stock of sweet pods right next to the mills and well away from any other freely accessible millables. The first thing milled will be something fairly random, but after that the dwarf should go straight for the sweet pods. You'll need to do this every time you want some sugar, but it can be set up by the manager and then forgotten about.

2. Get your sugar from the caravans. You won't get much, but there's no messing around. Mill products from trading always come in bags of 10, which might or might not be useful to you.

3. Set up a sweet pod only stockpile around the brewing area so that the sweet pods are closest to the stills, and restrict and unrestrict the brewing of sweet pods as necessary.

Yeah... moving all the other millable plants away from the mill, or all the other brewable plants away from the still seems counterproductive. I have a bad habit of stocking up far too much almost enough food and booze anyway.

[Tael]

I'd say its worth noting, there seems to be a preference of planters to A: plant specific plants, or B: plant a specific field ENTIRELY before planting in other fields.
Naturally, this can cause, problems with lazy planters, or producing the wrong kind of crops in larger plots.
For example, I use an unnecessarily large 4 plots of 5x5, in soil.
This leads at least, with a pair of proficient planters, to COPIOUS QUANTITIES of one kind of plant.
For reference, I do a simple food export business, exporting near ~10k dwarf bucks by first caravan, if I'm working right and get down to business on time.

I will say I rather dislike of the inefficiency of seeds movement. . .
Must.
Be.
Hauled.
One.
At.
A.
Time.
Every.
Single.
Time.

[Sutremaine]

Yeah... moving all the other millable plants away from the mill, or all the other brewable plants away from the still seems counterproductive.

I was thinking more of deleting part of the general plant stockpile closest to the still and putting the sweet pod pile in the gap (just a couple of squares should do it, since they'll be constantly replenished).

Same for the milling. You're not moving the other plants away from the workshop, but moving the sweet pods closer.

[Albedo]

I'd say its worth noting, there seems to be a preference of planters to A: plant specific plants, or B: plant a specific field ENTIRELY before planting in other fields.

I think I've seen this too (haven't looked for it, but might start) - but I wonder if it's not another example of "top left first" syndrome, perhaps?  The same way dwarves mine, and do many other things.

[Garfblarn]

THE KNOWLEDGE.

IT FILLS ME.



IT IS NEAT.