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[Albedo]

I never re-flood my TC farms.  The loss of hundreds of saplings is not worth the dozens of tiles reclaimed.

How big?

One area block at a time, about 48 square, sometimes a little less due to the map and stone incursions.  Multiples of them as the fortress grows.

(In my experience, unmuddied soil grows them at a density of about 3-5%, 1/20-30 tiles or so. So smaller soil areas won't show them often, esp if well traveled.)

On soil, it's perfect to train miners - first all up-stairs, then remove those for double the fast experience. A 43x43 square area will train 2 unskilled migrants to Legendary miners (and half-way to their 6th attribute) in something like 5 months - it's stupidly fast.  (Then, if they're spare miners, they become burly haulers or military, depending on their final stat mix.)

A quick irrigation tunnel that comes up near the middle does the trick - only used once, but then you just let the area cook.

[OneRaven]

I find that once I've breached an underground water source, the problem is stopping the trees from growing. I'm still trying to find a good way to prevent TCs from blocking up my channels - paving a road works fine except that I like having the depth-display on and the roads override that. I'm probably going to try fortifications on this fortress, but I'm not sure how that affects the water flow.

[durt101]

I find that once I've breached an underground water source, the problem is stopping the trees from growing. I'm still trying to find a good way to prevent TCs from blocking up my channels - paving a road works fine except that I like having the depth-display on and the roads override that. I'm probably going to try fortifications on this fortress, but I'm not sure how that affects the water flow.

Remember, they can get trampled with High Traffic zones.
One guy, because he needed some tiles of sand to stop growing over, chained animals there to trample it. Will magma kill ropes? Because if it does, you could sacrifice a few spare kittens inside your magma-channels.

[smokingwreckage]

Just to note: ordinary trees will NOT grow on muddied stone in the open. I wonder if they will with a muddy floor on the Zlevel down?

Which is a bit sad, I was trying to expand my aboveground forestry operations. It was a fairly large project and it failed dismally

Oh well, you live and learn, no dwarves were killed in the making of this mudfarm. I wonder if trees will grow on muddy stone with a muddy floor on the Zlevel down?

Tower caps definitely WILL grow on muddied stone floors regardless of what's below them- although they aren't growing on the muddy obsidian cap I made over my magma pipe. It had a one-tile breach to the surface while doing exploratory mining, but I don't think that's the problem. They will NOT grow on a soil floor without a solid layer of soil beneath it- I've tested this pretty extensively (though not the trick of muddying the floor on the Zlevel down).

Towercaps don't need a closed cave or any kind of fixed depth, as long as the tile is considered "underground", they will grow on it (assuming it meets the soil/mud criteria above).