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[Nebabon]

Hi all.  It's me again with all the zany questions.  First off, auto-butcher is amazing and indoor waterfalls are even better!

But my question for the night is about farming.  I have been trying to come up with the right cocktail of underground farming to keep the dwarves going but with no luck.  So my fine overlords of the underground, what size farms do you use?  What is the make up of the farming force?  What about the crop rotation?  Anything above ground as well?  I can't ever seem to make enough drinks as well.  I instead get plump helmet explosion. 

Any and all advice is welcomed.  I'll also at a slightly latter date, try and explain my amazing indoor waterfall

[Micro102]

well currently, i have 4 farms of 10 by 10. as i see it you really only need about 1 farm square per person for food. so i have 3 for food, and 1 rotating through all the others.

as for your drink problem, i had the same. first you turn off all the brews in the cooking menu and enable plump helmets. then cut down a ton of trees and make barrels like crazy or buy wood or barrels. 2 carpenter shops and 3 brewerys works perfect for me. just keep brew drink and make barrels repeated.

be warned i currently have a food stockpile bigger then all the rest of my fortress combined trying to keep brewing up with plant and prepared meals.

[Magua]

Food is never really a problem.  The only point where I floundered for awhile was I had a habit of turning on most, if not all, labors, for most, if not all, dwarves.  Bad idea for farming.  Have your growers grow, and don't let anyone else.  That way, you're sure they get the experience -- if anyone can farm, you'll end up with dozens of dabbling growers.  Better to have two or three master growers.

I tend to have 3 10x10 plots, and my food stockpile is large enough to last 10+ years at this point.  You can do everything plump helmets; anything else is extra bonus.  For exploitation, you can set plump helmets to not be cooked, only brewed, and for dwarven wine to be cooked, but even without that, I overflow with food and drink.

Drink is, of course, limited by the number of barrels you can make or buy.  I have over 100 in use in the drink stockpile.  I usually don't bother with barrels in any other stockpile, so that there's no question of contention.

[Grumman]

I have eight 4*8 plots in use: four above ground with silo doors to protect them from fliers and shooters, and four underground. Although they're mostly in use for storage at the moment, I also have another 16 irrigated underground plots - I'm hoping I can find an underground river, so I can have a go at growing tower caps in the spare plots.

[Ashery]

Loading up one of my forts to check the exact count of a recent fort, six 4x4 plots (Arranged as an 8x12) that overfed my meager 66 dwarves (953 prepared food, 515 dwarven syrup, 565 drink (No wood on the map, barrels are in short supply, else I'd have a lot more), etc. ) to the point that a large amount of food was simply rotting on the vine (And I was planting a fair number of dimple cups as well). I could probably stretch the 8x12 plot to feed 200 people fairly easily (Would require skilled planters, however).

[slink]

My 259 Dwarves are vastly overfed by 9 3x3 plots of aboveground plants in an underground greenhouse, plus 9 3x3 plots of underground plants.  The aboveground terrain plots are set to a single crop all-year-round, and sometimes lie fallow if the requisite seeds are not available due to being tied up in unused plants.  The underground terrain plots are cycled so that I get 6 crops of most plants.  I get fewer of dimple cups and more of plump helmets.

I control the output by allocating stockpiles to each plant, so excess rots.  Otherwise I would soon have a fortress filled with nothing but raw plants.

I have two farmer's workshops, three kitchens, and four querns.  The kitchens are usually running non-stop, and one quern.  The others I have to boost into action every now and then.  I also have four stills.

I keep 6 herds of 15 animals for meat, and the map appears to have small but steady flow of fish.  I have two fishermen.  I have prevented hunting, turning any bow wielders into soldiers.

My currrent stocks are:

220 meat
86 fish
15 raw fish
6566 plants
8937 prepared meals (split between biscuits and stews)
0 cheese (time to kick the farmer's workshop into action again!)
2655 edible extracts
209 edible powders
2515 dye powders
879 drinks
50 leaves
296 glob (148 tallow, rest fat, time to find that lazy rendering cook)
1410 seeds (I allow cooking of seeds if the stock is over 175)

All of my Dwarves harvest.  I have 5 legendary planters, 2 legendary cooks, 1 legendary miller, and 1 legendary dyer.  Brewing has been a neglected trade due to problems with barrel supply, but that should come around soon.

[LegacyCWAL]

I just put a bunch of farms to fill my farming area.  200 tiles' worth is more than enough.

If you just want to keep your dwarves fed and drunk, Plump Helmets work depressingly well.  Plant eighteen metric fucktons of them, year-round, and brew 'em, cook 'em, leave 'em raw, whatever.  If your fort is aboveground, there's something like nine aboveground crops that are identical to Plump Helmets as far as usage goes.  Buying out the caravans will provide more than enough variety to keep "same old booze"-type unhappy thoughts from cropping up.

If you want to use other stuff for some reason, Quarry Bushes give tons of food, and you won't have to worry about brewing them all or using all the seeds.  Sweet Pods are very versatile as well: queue up a couple zillion "mill plant" and "process plant (barrel)" in the job manager, and it'll take care of itself.

You can also raise animals: breed a couple hundred of a big animal like cows or horses, sticking all the newborns in a cage (all in the same cage) until they grow up.  Slaughter enough adults to keep the population constant, and you'll have a good, steady supply of meat.

[sdu]

*Shaking head* I increase my food needs 1x3 at a time. As long as you have potash to fertilize you wont need many. I barely fill my initial 3x5 muddy ground that I make in any fort.

I dont let them cook the plants, so it all gets made into beer, which I then convert into prepared meals if I need the food.

[Micro102]

possible solution.....make a stockpile for plants only and dont allow use of barrels for it. the food will rot if not used and will dedicate more barrels for brewing.

[Milskidasith]

I tend to start big and stay big... My initial farm plot is generally the biggest wedge of land I can find in my clustered workshops and dining halls that isn't bigger than 15x15. I currently have 160 dwarves, with probably 10 growers from talented up constantly working on aroung 500 total squares of plump helmet planting, along with about 8 breweries and kitchens constantly staffed by dwarves.

In other words, I have a metric assload of food. Probably around 2500 plump helmets at worst, with usually about 150 plump helmet seeds, 3000 beer, and 1k prepared meals.

[Soralin]

Let's see, with my first fort, I've built up about 144 tiles of farm underground, (not including my 10000 tiles of tree farm), and 90 tiles above ground (and substantial walled or moated areas for trees and vegetation), all producing a variety of things, not all of them edible.

I don't use fertilizer for them, and they produce an enormous amount of food.  I have a 210 population fortress, and I have about 40000 each of prepared food and drinks.  Food alone is a major source of wealth too, I have a dwarven syrup roast [80] that's worth 64000.  It's absurd how much you can produce with so little space and dwarfpower.

[Milskidasith]

How in the hell do you have 40000 of all that food? With such a small farm plot, you'd be losing more to rotting than you would gain by cooking and farming, unless you had about 45 haulers constantly hauling food to a massive stockpile underground.

[WorkerDrone]

Doesn't everyone have some sort of massive stockpile underground?

I know I do.

[sdu]

It's a big waste to have so much farmland =( Potash saves so much work. With my tiny corner of farm land i have more prepared food 1k+ depending on pop and plenty of alcohol. If i have over 100 plump helmet in stock its too many o0

[Micro102]

potash requires large amounts of wood. i barley have enough for barrels to store my food in....and im in a woodland.