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[Jaccubin]

My last three fortresses, despite having very different layouts have been destroyed by one and the same problem. I rely solely on farming for food, but whenever I instruct my growers to plant seeds in the farm plot, either I get the message "Bladui Blabladuson cancels plant seed, job item misplaced or lost". the seed then usually somehow turns up in the underground river, sometimes even in the above ground river. I think I should perhaps mention that I have two floodgates between the river and the farming area, as well as two between the farming area and the fortress. this layout used to always work for me. Other times my haulers will somehow extract the seed from the farm plot and carry it right back to the food stockpile. Due to all of this, I simply -cannot- produce either food or alcohol.

Anybody had any experience with this? I need to be able to stop this from happening, my dwarves, they hunger for the flesh for of innocent dimple cups.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Toady One]

This is possibly related Bug 310 -- seeds destroyed by rain.  Are your seeds stored indoors?  I'm not sure what's going on with your other observations, but if the seeds are outdoors, this might be part of the problem.

[Jaccubin]

no, I don't even let my dwarves -go- outdoors. the outdoors are scary, I'm fairly new to the game and a couple fortresses back I was jumped by a gang of demented elefants which mangled half of my fortress. first thing I did was chop down all the wood I could find so there wouldn't ever be a reason to do so. the seeds are in barrels safely tucked away in a storage room in the mountain, as is the farming area

[Toady One]

I have no idea why seeds are teleporting around then.  Any other observations of this?

[dreiche2]

Are you sure it's not vermin eating the seeds? Do you have any cats?

[LordBucket]

I've run into this many times. Amongst the standard causes, personally I think that animals can eat seeds being carried by dwarves, but others have disputed this here on the forums.

Do all of the following, and the problem should stop:

* Enclose your farms, and set the doors to 'tightly closed' to keep animals out. Do not place farms in hallways. If animals get in your farming area, kill them.
* Do the same for your seed/food storage room. Enclose it and tightly close the doors.
* Place these two rooms very close to each other. Newbie farmers in particular take a very long time to plant seeds, and if they have to walk any distance at all, they very often get thirsty, sleepy or bored before they finish. I try to keep my seeds within ten or fifteen spaces of my farm.
* Use proficient farmers. They seem to have problems less often than novice ones.

[Jaqie Fox]

I used to have this once in a while.  My solution happened on it's own. If you do what I do I bet you won't have the problem anymore.

1) I turn off weather for at least the first year or so.

2) I only make one farmer, skill 10.

3) As soon as I carve out enough hallway (always 2 wide) I put a one tall food stockpile about 20 wide so it can take all of the food that is outside, and then put beds beside those.  When I am carving out the hallway, I leave two bits of stone on either side of the stockpile to try and force the dwarves around it instead of trampling all over everything.

4)  After I get my field set up I make a seed only stockpile very near the field to shorten the length seeds are carried, like so:

5) I dont let any other person handle seeds except the farmer until after the first year of planting. one with skill 10 is more then enough to get the food done.

[Grek]

I've found that the best way to manage seeds it like this:

code:

 
##################~~~~###   # wall
#...==========#####~~~~##   . floor
#...==========####~~~~###   % farm
#...==========#####~~~~##   @ still
#...==========####~~~~###   = booze only 
#...###############~~~~##     stockpile
#...D.&.D.%%%%%.####~~~~#   ~ water 
#...#@@@#.%%%%%.###~~~~~#   X floodgate
#...D@@@D.%%%%%.X_X~~~~##   _ channel
#...#@@@#.%%%%%.####~~~~#   D door
#...D...D.%%%%%.###~~~~~#   & lever to flood
#...###############~~~~##         farm

The seeds are removed from the plant in the still and stay in the still until it's time to plant them.

[ May 17, 2007: Message edited by: Grek ]