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[Cerbsen]

After reading this post i started my own fertilization testing.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87721.msg2813394#msg2813394

My results:

Farmerskill	Plants per seed	Pps fertilized
( 0)Dabbling	1	~3
( 5)Proficient	~2	~4
(10)Accomplished	~2,5	~4,5
(15)Legendary	~3	~5
(20)Legenadry+5	~3,1	~5

edit
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123560.msg4078044#msg4078044

[Talvieno]

Dwarven science at its finest. I commend you.
(You're missing the magma, but I'll overlook that... this time.)

[vanatteveldt]

Do people actually use fertilizer? It seems so easy to create enough food with a single farmer that building a whole industry to increase something that is already abundant seems a waste of time...?

[Sutremaine]

I never use it. I barely even farm, as the vast majority of the food I make comes from animals.

[Tevish Szat]

Yeah, I kind of hadn't been bothering: potash is expensive and farm plot is cheap...

BUT, if you're stuck without a soil layer, relying on the caverns... then perhaps it will be good to know what fertilizer does.

[Scruffy]

Kudos, that was truly a great little bit of science. It didn't include husks, traumatized dwarven children, kobolds or magma (magma is the difference between science and !!SCIENCE!!) but instead this was information that will be useful in standard gameplay and will benefit everyone instead of just being some strange projects and complicated work like usual science around here.
Good job!

[flabort]

What I took from this is: I can use fertilizer to triple my food production, and I need potash to do it.
How duz I potash?

[krenshala]

Yeah, I kind of hadn't been bothering: potash is expensive and farm plot is cheap...

BUT, if you're stuck without a soil layer, relying on the caverns... then perhaps it will be good to know what fertilizer does.

If you are stuck without a soil layer you just dig your farm, and on the level above it you dig out the floor (ceiling for the farm) in rows to allow you to dump some water in it.  You could, of course, flood the room from your water source as well ... as long as  you don't flood it permanently.

[Sutremaine]

The last time I used fertiliser was in 40d (I think), and there the dwarves wouldn't start planting until the field was fully fertilised. Large plots plus distant potash storage may lose you enough time to significantly reduce the number of plants you get for the season, although the ones you do get will be in fewer stacks.

There's a table on the wiki showing how many bars of potash are required for a certain number of tiles. 7 tiles seems to be the sweet spot, coming in at under 0.3 bars per tile while taking only two trips before planting can begin.

[Tevish Szat]

Yeah, I kind of hadn't been bothering: potash is expensive and farm plot is cheap...

BUT, if you're stuck without a soil layer, relying on the caverns... then perhaps it will be good to know what fertilizer does.

If you are stuck without a soil layer you just dig your farm, and on the level above it you dig out the floor (ceiling for the farm) in rows to allow you to dump some water in it.  You could, of course, flood the room from your water source as well ... as long as  you don't flood it permanently.

Since we're talking about challenge(ing) embarks, it might just not be plausible to to get water before the caverns on a wasteland or glacier.  If you're skittish about the underground (like me, in my case primarily because of uninvited guests), you're only going to wall off as much cavern as you absolutely need, and fertilizer could make the difference...

Of course, if you're in a barren desert or glacier scenario, the potash to fertilize will ALSO be at a premium, but the needs of a plot or two are modest.

[Lord Snow]

Yeah, I kind of hadn't been bothering: potash is expensive and farm plot is cheap...

BUT, if you're stuck without a soil layer, relying on the caverns... then perhaps it will be good to know what fertilizer does.

Or if your farming population had, say, a happy little accident.
Might come in handy in a pinch, potash doesn't rot either as far as i know. Might make a stash for those kind of days, i usually swim in wood anyway.

[Sutremaine]

Since we're talking about challenge(ing) embarks, it might just not be plausible to to get water before the caverns on a wasteland or glacier.  If you're skittish about the underground (like me, in my case primarily because of uninvited guests), you're only going to wall off as much cavern as you absolutely need, and fertilizer could make the difference...

If building time is a concern, you can bring materials in directly from above. Dig an access shaft above the far-flung area you want to seal, stopping it the level before it would break through the ceiling of the cavern beneath. On this level, dig out a small space to hold your construction materials. When you have enough materials and enough idle dwarves (burrows may help here), dig the last tile out, construct an up stair on the cavern floor, and then get cracking on the wall. Repeat until there is no ground access to your patch of cavern. This will stop fliers from finding a path in, though their meanderings might bring them over the wall to a ground path. In that case, you should still have time for an evacuation.

If you need a wall that's taller than one level to completely seal the cavern, there are multiple options. Creating scaffolding is good for narrow sections, but leaves your dwarves out in the open while they work. Caving in solid rock walls on top of your constructed walls allows you to do all the work without allowing fort access or LOS, but it takes a while and you might get FBs before you're finished. If you built walls beforehand and don't get fliers, no problem. If you get a flier made of flame or hardcoded materials such as snow or mud, not much of a problem. If you get a flier with spittle or stings or other physical attacks, bit of a problem if you don't have hard-to-hit soldiers. If you get a flier with dust or vapours or webs, please consult a dictionary for additional meanings of the word 'evacuate'.

Deadly blood means that the FB is organic, which means it can be shot to death. But be careful with cleanup. Bridges or floors will allow you to remove contaminants without walking over them, and as for tile with the corpse itself...  I guess you could pour water over it to move the contaminant away from the corpse. Same goes for cleanup of secretions, which I think are also only found on organic FBs.

[Quietust]

Back in DF version 0.23.130.23a (which had less compiler optimization, making the disassembly much easier to read), this is how farm plots worked:
1. Base yield is set to 1.
2. If the farm plot is at least 25% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2) (a random number from 0 to 1).
3. If the farm plot is at least 50% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
4. If the farm plot is at least 75% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
5. If the farm plot is 100% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
6. If rand(5) (a random number from 0 to 4) is less than the Planting skill for the seed (the Farmer's skill level when the seed was planted, capped at 20 = Legendary+5), increase yield by rand(2).
7. If rand(10) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
8. If rand(15) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
9. If rand(20) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
10. If rand(25) is less than the Planting skill for the seed (again, capped at 20) and rand(3) is equal to 0, increase yield by rand(2).

The end result is that a Legendary+5 farmer planting in a 100% fertilized field can get yields of up to 10, but that's the absolute maximum (so yields will probably average at around 4-5). Also, fertilization only matters the instant the seed matures into a stack of plants, so you don't actually need to fertilize the plot until after you've planted the seeds (and indeed, it's better to plant the seeds first and then apply the fertilizer while you wait for the seeds to grow so you can increase your chances of planting and harvesting a second set of crops before the season changes and the fertilizer wears off).

Taking a brief look at a disassembly of said logic in 0.34.11, it looks like it hasn't changed in the past 5+ years, though I can't be sure that all of the random number ranges are the same (because the compiler optimizes them away and turns them into inlined multiplications and shifts).

[Cerbsen]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Back in DF version 0.23.130.23a (which had less compiler optimization, making the disassembly much easier to read), this is how farm plots worked:
1. Base yield is set to 1.
2. If the farm plot is at least 25% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2) (a random number from 0 to 1).
3. If the farm plot is at least 50% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
4. If the farm plot is at least 75% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
5. If the farm plot is 100% fertilized, increase yield by rand(2).
6. If rand(5) (a random number from 0 to 4) is less than the Planting skill for the seed (the Farmer's skill level when the seed was planted, capped at 20 = Legendary+5), increase yield by rand(2).
7. If rand(10) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
8. If rand(15) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
9. If rand(20) is less than the Planting skill for the seed, increase yield by rand(2).
10. If rand(25) is less than the Planting skill for the seed (again, capped at 20) and rand(3) is equal to 0, increase yield by rand(2).

The end result is that a Legendary+5 farmer planting in a 100% fertilized field can get yields of up to 10, but that's the absolute maximum (so yields will probably average at around 4-5). Also, fertilization only matters the instant the seed matures into a stack of plants, so you don't actually need to fertilize the plot until after you've planted the seeds (and indeed, it's better to plant the seeds first and then apply the fertilizer while you wait for the seeds to grow so you can increase your chances of planting and harvesting a second set of crops before the season changes and the fertilizer wears off).

Taking a brief look at a disassembly of said logic in 0.34.11, it looks like it hasn't changed in the past 5+ years, though I can't be sure that all of the random number ranges are the same (because the compiler optimizes them away and turns them into inlined multiplications and shifts).

According to Quietust's grand master disassembly skill farming yield should be as follows:

Farmerskill	avg. yield	|	Farmerskill	avg. yield
( 0)Dabbling	1	|
( 1)Novice	1,215	|	(11)Great	2,715
( 2)Adequate	1,43	|	(12)Master	2,78
( 3)Competent	1,645	|	(13)High Master	2,845
( 4)Skilled	1,86	|	(14)Grand Master	2,91
( 5)Proficient	2,075	|	(15)Legendary	2,975
( 6)Talented	2,19	|	(16)Legendary+1	3,007
( 7)Adept	2,305	|	(17)Legendary+2	3,038
( 8)Expert	2,42	|	(18)Legendary+3	3,07
( 9)Professional	2,535	|	(19)Legendary+4	3,102
(10)Accomplished	2,65	|	(20)Legendary+5	3,133

Fertilization
Fertilizing adds 0 to 1 plants per 25% total fertilization.
So a fully fertilized field results in an average yield of 2 additional plants per farm field.

[Mushroo]

Do people actually use fertilizer? It seems so easy to create enough food with a single farmer that building a whole industry to increase something that is already abundant seems a waste of time...?

It is very satisfying if you trade prepared meals for profit and enjoy making super-expensive single roasts.

4 x quarry bush [5]=quarry bush leaves roast [100]
4 x quarry bush [9]=quarry bush leaves roast [180]

Another fun one is to save up forgotten beast meat until you get 4 stacks. A stack of forgotten beast meat roast [1,000] is crazy valuable!