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[rwilliams]

I'm still pretty new to the game; lately, I've been messing around with water trying to make an irrigation system. I also heard that if you channel the top layer off, you can grow outdoor crops in the safety of your fortress, and even build a glass roof above it. After flooding a few forts, I finally created a successful irrigation system. It takes water from a brook, allows it to flow over a 5x5 room, and then dumps it into a nearby chasm. I say it was successful because my obsidian cave floor is now muddy, but it wasn't a total success.



I can't plant any seeds. I was hoping to grow wild strawberries and prickle berries, and I have a good stock of seeds.

When I look at the field with "k" it says that it is considered outside.



How can I grow my prickle berries in my fortress?

[Amalgam]

Uh, what exactly is the problem? You already set it, right? Are your dwarves just not planting anything?

Wait a minute, I think I recall some kind of bug where any kind of obstruction in the center tile of a farm plot would prevent your dwarves from planting anything in it. Try digging a new plot somewhere else and irrigate that one as well, but this time don't put any stairs there. It's just a hunch. Looks like you already got a plump helmet farm going so I'm assuming you already know all the basics of farming, I'm guessing that bug could be the culprit. Your prickly berries should be planted and grown without a hitch.

[qoonpooka]

Irrigation is bugged, it doesn't work on outdoor crops. You can only grow indoor crops via irrigation.

[rwilliams]

Irrigation is bugged, it doesn't work on outdoor crops. You can only grow indoor crops via irrigation.

Hmm. So I can either plant outdoor crops underground on clay if I channel out the top layer of soil, or irrigate with a closed roof and grow underground crops? Is that right? I understand there's a new version on the horizon. Any word on whether this is something important enough to fix?

Uh, what exactly is the problem? You already set it, right? Are your dwarves just not planting anything?

Wait a minute, I think I recall some kind of bug where any kind of obstruction in the center tile of a farm plot would prevent your dwarves from planting anything in it. Try digging a new plot somewhere else and irrigate that one as well, but this time don't put any stairs there. It's just a hunch. Looks like you already got a plump helmet farm going so I'm assuming you already know all the basics of farming, I'm guessing that bug could be the culprit. Your prickly berries should be planted and grown without a hitch.

Actually, the X's are my viewer, not an up/down staircase, but now that you mention it, an irrigation system with a bunch of farms on top of each other with the water flowing down spiral staircases in the middle of each field would be a pretty awesome project

[Corinthius]

Greetings, quick question rwilliams, it looks like you managed to nicely irrigate that room, and I was wondering just how. I'm pretty confused by irrigation. How did you manage to just "take water" from the river? With a screw pump? What is that grey 'X' bordering the river. Also, do those levers have anything to do with it? And finally, where did the water go after it flooded over the floor?

Thanks!

[rwilliams]

Greetings, quick question rwilliams, it looks like you managed to nicely irrigate that room, and I was wondering just how. I'm pretty confused by irrigation. How did you manage to just "take water" from the river? With a screw pump? What is that grey 'X' bordering the river. Also, do those levers have anything to do with it? And finally, where did the water go after it flooded over the floor?

Thanks!

Sure. I dug a channel from close to the river to the room, then I built a flood gate (that's the X) in the channel, then I connected the river to the flood gate. Also make sure you have a flood gate in any other entrance to the room that will be flooded so you don't flood your fortress, and I built kind of a U shaped hall between just in case if I messed up I'd hopefully have time to close the flood gate before my actual fort got wet.

Here's what it would look like from the side.



The two levers control the two flood gates, a mechanic can make them and set them up.

In my original pictures you can see a long hallway off to the left. It leads to a chasm which is where the water goes. This is not pictured in my MS Paint drawing, but if you think of the perspective of the drawing, the viewer would be standing in the drainage channel.

For more specifics, I found that the wiki articles on flood gates, water pressure, and mechanisms made things understandable to me.

Hope this helps.

[IronyOwl]

I understand there's a new version on the horizon. Any word on whether this is something important enough to fix?

It strikes me as highly unlikely that it'll be intentionally fixed, but fairly likely that how the game handles crops will be changed to much as to resolve the issue on its own. Or replace it with a worse bug.

How did you manage to just "take water" from the river? With a screw pump?

Screw pumps are generally the best way to move water around, partially because they can be turned off rather easily. If you make a mistake digging a channel or something, bad things can happen, as rwilliams was careful to account for. You can build temporary walls of whatever is lying around to help funnel the water where you want it to go, or rely on its natural spreading tendencies for short distances.

And finally, where did the water go after it flooded over the floor?

For small amounts, you can just let it flow elsewhere in your fortress. 1-tile deep water will eventually evaporate, meaning you don't actually need a "destination" as long as there's a fair amount of surface area for it to rest in.

Do note that this will get your floors muddy, of course, but that doesn't have any negative consequences.

[Jim Groovester]

Irrigation is bugged, it doesn't work on outdoor crops. You can only grow indoor crops via irrigation.

You can grow anything, above ground crops or underground crops, on a muddied surface. Even constructed surfaces will do fine, so long as they are muddy.

Anyways, that's not the reason why you're not able to grow any above ground crops. In order to plant, say, prickle berries, you need more than just the seeds. You need prickle berries or any prickle berry products, not the seeds, for you to be able to enable prickle berries for planting. Frustrating and unintuitive, I know.

So if you got a bunch of seeds from the elf caravan or something you'll need your dwarves to do some plant gathering and hope that some prickle berries turn up or that the humans bring along some prickle berry wine or some other solution.

[Corinthius]

Greetings, quick question rwilliams, it looks like you managed to nicely irrigate that room, and I was wondering just how. I'm pretty confused by irrigation. How did you manage to just "take water" from the river? With a screw pump? What is that grey 'X' bordering the river. Also, do those levers have anything to do with it? And finally, where did the water go after it flooded over the floor?

Thanks!

Sure. I dug a channel from close to the river to the room, then I built a flood gate (that's the X) in the channel, then I connected the river to the flood gate. Also make sure you have a flood gate in any other entrance to the room that will be flooded so you don't flood your fortress, and I built kind of a U shaped hall between just in case if I messed up I'd hopefully have time to close the flood gate before my actual fort got wet.

Here's what it would look like from the side.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2a7sl04.jpg

The two levers control the two flood gates, a mechanic can make them and set them up.

In my original pictures you can see a long hallway off to the left. It leads to a chasm which is where the water goes. This is not pictured in my MS Paint drawing, but if you think of the perspective of the drawing, the viewer would be standing in the drainage channel.

For more specifics, I found that the wiki articles on flood gates, water pressure, and mechanisms made things understandable to me.

Hope this helps.

Thanks! This makes things much clearer! I really appreciate it. =]

[qoonpooka]

You can grow anything, above ground crops or underground crops, on a muddied surface. Even constructed surfaces will do fine, so long as they are muddy.

Anyways, that's not the reason why you're not able to grow any above ground crops. In order to plant, say, prickle berries, you need more than just the seeds. You need prickle berries or any prickle berry products, not the seeds, for you to be able to enable prickle berries for planting. Frustrating and unintuitive, I know.

So if you got a bunch of seeds from the elf caravan or something you'll need your dwarves to do some plant gathering and hope that some prickle berries turn up or that the humans bring along some prickle berry wine or some other solution.

If you have the ability to produce verifying documentation of this, I suggest you consider editing the wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Irrigation.

It presently reads to the contrary.

[Jim Groovester]

What portion specifically is contrary to what I'm saying?

I'm guessing it's this little bit:

An "outdoor" plot can be built on indoor soil by opening up the ceiling, and optionally flooring it over again, but this won't work on indoor mud. If the farm plot includes at least one soil/grass tile, this does not appear to happen.

Yeah, the 'indoor mud' thing is totally wrong. I just ran a test on it, and my planter had no trouble planting some longland grass seeds on the muddy inside light above ground tower cap log floors I had put the farm plot on.

[qoonpooka]

What portion specifically is contrary to what I'm saying?

I'm guessing it's this little bit:

An "outdoor" plot can be built on indoor soil by opening up the ceiling, and optionally flooring it over again, but this won't work on indoor mud. If the farm plot includes at least one soil/grass tile, this does not appear to happen.

Yeah, the 'indoor mud' thing is totally wrong. I just ran a test on it, and my planter had no trouble planting some longland grass seeds on the muddy inside light above ground tower cap log floors I had put the farm plot on.

Did it grow to harvest?

As I understand it the system will let you designate and plant, but the seeds never grow.  I can't find the original source for that information, though.

[Jim Groovester]

I didn't wait that long.

Once planted, the seeds are on a timer. After a fixed amount of time, they become plants and your grower can harvest them. I'm sure that if I waited my grower would have had some longland grass to pick.

I've done this before, too, on a fort. A cave-in punched a hole through where I planned to put my outdoor farms, so I replaced the hole with a constructed floor and muddied that. It had no trouble producing plants.