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Author Topic: Farming help?  (Read 1237 times)

frogs2345

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Farming help?
« on: August 10, 2014, 02:34:06 pm »

Could someone help me with my farms in DF? I have several farmers and planters of high skill, but they refuse to plant anything even though I have irrigated and fertilized the field. Also, it says I don't have plump helmet spawn when I clearly have over 300 seeds in multiple bags in barrels. Any tips?
P.S. I've gone without booze and plants for 4 years in game.(Legendary Fisherdwarves)
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dexxy

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2014, 04:27:02 pm »

Is it above ground or below ground? Did you use the 'k' button to examine each square of the farm plots to make sure that they are all "dark" or "light", as appropriate for the crop?

Did you try making a small farm plot to see if they will grow things there?
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frogs2345

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2014, 04:53:28 pm »

It seems that i found a new bug. One of the tiles was labeled as inside above ground light, when underground in the dark. The cause was a tree directly above the square.
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Henour

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2014, 05:19:23 pm »

It seems that i found a new bug. One of the tiles was labeled as inside above ground light, when underground in the dark. The cause was a tree directly above the square.
This is intended because roots let through some light as I understand it. Its pretty weired though.
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dexxy

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2014, 05:22:08 pm »

If you have enough dirt, don't put farms on the layer below the surface. Put them one level or more lower down.

Then you can use the layer below the surface for defensive and military purposes.
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MystRunner

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2014, 11:26:05 pm »

I'm having a similar issue in my game. I've checked all the tiles in my farms. I've paved the ground above my farms to prevent tree growth. All tiles in my farm are recording Inside Dark Subterranean. I have 15 Plump helmet spawn. Fields are irrigated and were growing just fine. But when I look at the farm in the set task menu the selection for plump helmets is red. Soon as the season changed (I was in winter) The dorfs started to plant plump helmets again. Is this a new feature of the game that we are only able to get one set of a certain crop off a field per each season? Or does this mean we now have to fertilize to continuously grow?
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Chevaleresse

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2014, 02:01:50 am »

I believe the game no longer allows you to plant crops near the end of the season due to issues with crops failing upon seasonal changes. Odd that it occurs with plump helmets though.
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Deboche

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2014, 04:32:18 am »

KingMurdoc is right. I guess it doesn't matter if the crop is available next season, it'll still fail when the season changes.
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greycat

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2014, 10:47:59 am »

All tiles in my farm are recording Inside Dark Subterranean. I have 15 Plump helmet spawn. Fields are irrigated and were growing just fine. But when I look at the farm in the set task menu the selection for plump helmets is red. Soon as the season changed (I was in winter) The dorfs started to plant plump helmets again.

Bug #7747: Farm plot planting cut-off fails to work over the Winter->Spring boundary
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frogs2345

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2014, 01:05:13 pm »

Could someone teach me how to irrigate and underground farm? The several times I've tried have resulted in the deaths of many people.
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greycat

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2014, 01:17:10 pm »

Could someone teach me how to irrigate and underground farm? The several times I've tried have resulted in the deaths of many people.

The simplest way is not to irrigate at all; just build farm plots on the soil layers.  Of course this restricts you to the soil layers.

If you want to irrigate, the easiest way is the bucket brigade.  First, make a well (or a bunch of wells, or designate a water source over a brook, etc.).  Also make some buckets.  You'll want at least 4 spare buckets at all times.

Figure out where you want the farms to be.  Each farm plot will be 2xN tiles (anything from 2x1 to 2x10) with space between them.  Figure out how big that area has to be, then dig it out.  Then dig out a matching area above that.

In the upper area, poke holes (channel) over each of the spots you want to be a farm plot.  With 2x2 plots it might look something like this:
Code: [Select]
  #########
  #.......#
  #.HH.HH.# H = channel
  #.HH.HH.#
  #.......#
  ####.####

Now, one plot at a time, designate each channeled tile as a separate 1x1 pond zone.  When a dwarf has "filled" a pond once (creating 1/7 water and mud on the tile below), remove that particular pond zone.  The result will be a 2x2 muddy area on the level below, on which you can immediately build a farm plot.  Repeat this for each plot.

For more details, see How to farm.
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Bormac

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2014, 06:36:28 pm »

One thing I notice that slows down pretty much all food related work, is that when people go to, say, pick up seeds from the dining room, in an effort to speed things up (To keep people from carrying one seed at a time) they carry the seed container downstairs to pick up the seeds. But that means that the farmers can't plant anything as they interpret that as NO MORE SEEDS and will send that message because the game judges seeds in transit as non-existent.
Also cancels brewing jobs when the plant barrel is being moved around, to my eternal dismay.
This also happens when people are picking up finished goods from the crafts workshops, you can't select that bin to be moved to the trade depot because it doesn't exist until its back in the stockpile.
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Deboche

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2014, 06:47:31 pm »

I like to irrigate with water from the well and I think it's less work:

Dig out the area you want to farm in, dig a little corridor to your cistern and have a door or floodgate linked to a lever to open and close it. Like this:

Well            OOOOOOOOOO
OOO   Door  O                 O
~~~OOOOOO                 O
~~~~D              Farm     D   <- You want to have this door locked when the other one is open
~~~OOOOOO                 O
OOO           O                 O
                 OOOOOOOOOO

So after the water has filled the room(meaning every square gets wet with 1/7 water, not the whole room with 7/7!) you can either open the front door and let the excess water wash out onto the rest of your fortress or wait for it to evaporate or create one or two holes beforehand that it can drain through.

The bonus is that if you want to create an underground pasture, you just need to flood another room using the same method and all you have to do is place a door and dig another corridor.

Playing with water can lead to a lot of FUN when you're starting out and I did lose a fortress or two before I got the hang of it. On the other hand, I managed to trap a forgotten beast once in a room full of water. It didn't drown but it got stuck there.
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Kaos

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2014, 08:47:04 pm »

It seems that i found a new bug. One of the tiles was labeled as inside above ground light, when underground in the dark. The cause was a tree directly above the square.
This is intended because roots let through some light as I understand it. Its pretty weired though.
I can confirm this, don't know if bug or feature, some time the tile right bellow a tree trunks is outside light.... realized it by farming by the way, when my underground farm plot besides the underground crops also had red spinaks, something was odd...
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susancreature

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Re: Farming help?
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2014, 05:40:20 am »


I'm also having planting trouble - but in this case somehow my plump helmet spawn have all disappeared. Are vermin getting them?  Are they not generated with brewing anymore?  I'm mystified. 
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