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Author Topic: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"  (Read 784 times)

Byakugan01

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Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« on: April 01, 2011, 11:48:19 pm »
Back in 40d, I used to do quite a bit of outdoor farming, to give my dwarves more boozes and crops to prepare/eat raw. I just tried to set this up in my latest fort...only being told I "have no seeds available for this location". Now, this is a problem, as the current map has about no soil. True, I might be able to make my dwarves live on a diet of raw egg, but I'd like to be able to rest easy knowing I don't have to rely on a gathering blacksmith to get plants for booze. Any reason why? I KNOW I have Longland grass seeds, and it says this no matter WHAT season I pick.
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From Mr. Welch's 1350 things he is not allowed to do in a RPG:
148. There is no Gnomish Deathgrip, and even if there was, it wouldn't involve tongs.
171. My character's dying words are not allowed to be "Hastur, Hastur, Hastur"
218. No matter my alignment, organizing halfling pit fights is a violation.
231. I am not allowed to do anything that would make a Sith Lord cry.
240. Any character with more than three skills specializing in chainsaw is vetoed.

Starver

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2011, 11:58:25 pm »
Where did you get the seeds?  IIRC, you can't embark with above-ground seeds, so you must have gathered them (assuming you didn't get them from the elves/etc).   Where you gathered them from must be the patch of soil you have, which is where you need to put your fields.

I'm a bit unsure as to whether muddied rock can work, above-ground, but I've only been using surface soil recently (actually, I usually 'dig in' a Z-level into so that I have above-ground conditions but without all those annoying stray boulders/non-soil surface tiles as I effectively create a pure-soil floor below), and even soil underground (in another spot, just dig a soil cavern, I've no longer had to engineer some form of flooding on most embarks).

Basically, I believe the "...no seeds..." message would apply if it doesn't satisfy conditions.  So, assuming you haven't already tried and failed with either, farm on your lonesome spots of soil or try wetting bare rock, but I'm not sure about that.

(You know, if it doesn't tell you exactly what's what on the wiki, w.r.t. that last point, then someone's missed a trick.  As did I by only just remembering that I could have checked there after typing all the above...  I'll do it later. :) )
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Byakugan01

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2011, 12:16:31 am »
The funny thing is, it's definitely on outside soil. If it's any help, it's hot, but when I tried to plant it WAS the rainy season. And I tried to wet the indoor rock with buckets, but that just returned a "error: Inappropiate building" spam. Doubt it would work any better outside. And yes, I gathered-and brewed-them.

Edit: Oddly enough, I built a DIFFERENT plot and it's fine with it. Weird.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2011, 12:27:32 am by Byakugan01 »
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From Mr. Welch's 1350 things he is not allowed to do in a RPG:
148. There is no Gnomish Deathgrip, and even if there was, it wouldn't involve tongs.
171. My character's dying words are not allowed to be "Hastur, Hastur, Hastur"
218. No matter my alignment, organizing halfling pit fights is a violation.
231. I am not allowed to do anything that would make a Sith Lord cry.
240. Any character with more than three skills specializing in chainsaw is vetoed.

bucket

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2011, 01:25:15 am »
I'm pretty sure topsoil has to be muddied before you can plant on it. I get around this by channeling out a square and putting plots in it. (Of course, the level below should be soil and not rock.)
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Immacolata

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2011, 05:53:44 am »
I can confirm this. I had no luck at all farming topsoil until it had rained for the first time in the late fall.
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Krelos

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2011, 08:08:01 am »
There's also the biome restriction, you cant grow surface plants in a biome that they aren't growing in naturally.
But you can usually see the border quite clearly, in the ground layer change. Might need reveal to check it.
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Quote from: Ravenplucker
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Quote from: smokingwreckage
In order to improve the universe's frame rate, we must all throw rocks into volcanoes and then do absolutely nothing, worldwide, for a week, to take pressure off pathfinding.
or maybe throw them into the large hadron collider to atom-smash them instead.
Not to mention to throw all available animals into tiny pits.

greycat

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2011, 09:55:21 am »
Ignore all answers before Krelos's.  They're all misleading.

If you can't plant seeds in a farm plot that was built on above-ground clay, it's because that clay is in a Mountain biome.  No amount of rain or mud will make an elfin' bit of difference.
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Lytha

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2011, 10:22:45 am »
It could also be a tundra or ocean biome. All of these, plus the already mentioned mountains, may have soil, but won't accept any seeds.


And I support the advice to ignore these misleading replies from before Krelos' posting.
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Lytha likes fire clay, rose gold, green glass, bags, the colour midnight blue, and cats for their aloofness. When possible, she prefers to consume tea and cow cheese.

Darkweave

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2011, 11:14:10 am »
Quote from: greycat on April 02, 2011, 09:55:21 am
Ignore all answers before Krelos's.  They're all misleading.

If you can't plant seeds in a farm plot that was built on above-ground clay, it's because that clay is in a Mountain biome.  No amount of rain or mud will make an elfin' bit of difference.

Agreed. I had the same problem a few days ago, it's a biome issue. If you have shrubs growing somewhere outside then make your farm there as that part of the embark should be part of a suitable biome.
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Byakugan01

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2011, 01:10:51 pm »
Looks like the area i was growing in marked the boundary between a mountain and tropical dry coniferous forest biome. Krelos hit it on the dime.
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From Mr. Welch's 1350 things he is not allowed to do in a RPG:
148. There is no Gnomish Deathgrip, and even if there was, it wouldn't involve tongs.
171. My character's dying words are not allowed to be "Hastur, Hastur, Hastur"
218. No matter my alignment, organizing halfling pit fights is a violation.
231. I am not allowed to do anything that would make a Sith Lord cry.
240. Any character with more than three skills specializing in chainsaw is vetoed.

Dradym

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Re: Outdoor farming-"No Seeds Available"
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2011, 03:03:27 pm »
i had the same problem....but only with some of my farms, i discovered that there was sand under the grass that was growing on the top, so it let me place the plot, but when it came time to plant seeds....yeah, "no seeds available for this location", only after i [k] the farm tiles, i discovered this-though all the hill ramps i removed made sand, i was on sandy clay, or whatever, so i didnt think that would matter, but it does apparently.

so yeah, check for sand.  thats the moral of my story.
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