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[Neskiairti]

Alright, so, I get this farming thing, i do alright at it.. but the fertilizer thing has me baffled..

every single farm ive made in dwarf fortress has always had a fertility of 0/1

this means nothing to me and there is no explination.. and i can never seem to fertilize the plot..

[GeneralValter]

You need potash. At a wood burner, you can make ash from logs. Then you build an ashery and then make potash from the ash. The potash is a fertilizer.

[Neskiairti]

i get that.. i have potash.. but... >.> any time i tell them to fertilize, nothing happens. and it stays at 0/1 (what does 0/1 mean?)

[Rollio]

I'm not sure on that one myslef but I know if you irrigate farms you can increase the 1 my last fortress had a pair of plots at 0/11,(they were paddy fields and remained under water of depth 2 at all times) However that fortress had no wood so I didn't take my experiments any further.
I started anew but I'm left without a source of water to work with. Maybe next time.

[Neskiairti]

by the way.. digging upwards in to an underground river filled with hundreds of lizard men snake men and frog men = painful.. >.> didnt warn me it was damp terrain either since i was digging up in to the wall..

my miner died before he even had a chance to drown.

[Hague]

The fertility rating is relative to the size of the plot. A large plot will have a higher number on the right side. For example: 0/11 means that the plot is large enough to require 11 units of fertilizer (potash) to fully fertilize the field. Unfortunately, fertilization is seasonal, so even if you fertilize a field and then never grow anything on it, you will need to fertilize it again when the seasons change. As I understand, you only get 1 unit of potash from 1 unit of ash so fertilization is a really unreasonable way to increase farm production. That log could be better used for something less transient.

[Grebo]

Also, you can only fertilize outside plots.  You can make an outside plot inside just below the surface, by channeling out the ceiling (and building floors over it if you want).

[Proteus]

quote:Originally posted by Hague:
<STRONG>The fertility rating is relative to the size of the plot. A large plot will have a higher number on the right side. For example: 0/11 means that the plot is large enough to require 11 units of fertilizer (potash) to fully fertilize the field. Unfortunately, fertilization is seasonal, so even if you fertilize a field and then never grow anything on it, you will need to fertilize it again when the seasons change. As I understand, you only get 1 unit of potash from 1 unit of ash so fertilization is a really unreasonable way to increase farm production. That log could be better used for something less transient.</STRONG>

Unless of course you get your potash from trading caravans and only have to pay for it in goblin clothes which, after a few invasions, you normally have in abundance  

[GreyMario]

Correction:

you can only fertilize above-ground plots.

[BurnedToast]

false, you can fertilize underground plots - you just need to muddy them first.

it IS nice getting 7 or 8 plant stacks from legendary growers out of fertilized fields, but generally I don't bother with it because it's already trivial to keep up with the food.

[nerdpride]

Yes, I think mud is the key to fertilizing underground, so you'd need a source of water for it.

Not sure though.

[Neskiairti]

ok, so muddying up the ground changes that 0/1 to say 0/8 or what not (i got 0/8 on a plot of muddied ground) which means i can fertilize it with 8 potash now? and it would produce more per seed?

[Lyrax]

It would produce more plants from each seed, yes.