Agriculture

From Eco - English Wiki

Agriculture is the cultivation of plants on tilled land. Growing crops with high yields is a balancing act of maintaining the proper soil conditions (Temperature, Nutrients, and Soil Moisture).

Getting Started with Agriculture[edit | edit source]

The two essential tools for farming are the Soil Sampler and the Hoe. While the Hoe can be crafted from the start at the Workbench, the Soil Sampler needs to be built at a Tool Bench after learning the corresponding Fertilizers Skill. Note that one does not need specialize in Fertilizers to craft it, only read the skill scroll.

Until this skill is learned, you can look at the map to see where certain crops will grow well by clicking on the right arrow, going to the bottom of the list, and finding things like "plants -> yield potential -> (plant's name)". Yield potential is an indication of % match in the soil conditions for each specific plant. Planting crops in high yield potential areas will successfully produce and have higher total yield per plot. This will give you a good start until you are able to make the Soil Sampler.

After planting new crops or changing the soil condition in any other manner, it will take a few minutes for the Soil Sampler to show the updated statistics.

Choosing where to plant[edit | edit source]

Before you begin planting, learn a little bit more about which plants grow well where. For this, you can use the Soil Sampler on already existing Plants to check their needs or refer to the map's crop yield potentials.

There are two main factors to consider when deciding where to plant your crops: Temperature and Moisture. Both variables must match your crop's requirements as closely as possible in order for your farm to be successful. Depending on how close the given values are to the plant's requirements, the Display of the Soil Sampler will tell you if these values are above or below the Minimum / Optimal / Maximum value for this specific plant.

Nutrients also play a role in determining how plants grow, but these can be supplemented with fertilizers. Nutrients are not fully implemented in the 0.7.4 simulation.

The moisture, temperature, and nutrients of a given block of land are determined by the 5x5 plot that it resides in. These 5x5 plots are identical to the plots used for determining property claims. Because of this, a Land Claim Stake is a great tool to visualize farming plots, in addition to their importance in protecting your farm.

If the plant's needs are met, the growth time and survival rate of your crops is greatly increased.

Seeds[edit | edit source]

Seeds can be obtained in different ways, depending on the Plant.

Most plants will grant you a small amount of seeds when harvesting. Alternatively the Farmers Table offers a number of recipes to extract seeds from the harvested plants.

As for Trees, those Seeds must be acquired by using an Axe on the tree debris created when the branches and the trunk hit the ground. The debris will give you wood pulp and from time to time seeds - the type of seed will vary depending on the tree. Currently there are 9 types of trees in the game: birch, cedar, ceiba, fir, joshua, oak, palm, redwood, spruce.

Not all Plants grant Seeds as some of them act as seeds themselves, such as Camas Bulb, Beans, and Rice.

Understanding soil statistics[edit | edit source]

Temperature[edit | edit source]

Temperature used to be influenced mainly by elevation in 0.7.4, but that is no longer the case. Aside from global temperature rising from pollution, it's no longer possible to influence the temperature.

Moisture[edit | edit source]

Moisture is affected by two factors: Rainfall and Water Spread

This could be manipulated by the player with the use of aqueducts to move water sources closer or further from the land plot. It will, however, take quite some time until the moisture level changes.

Soil moisture can also be lowered by creating "raised beds", elevating multiple spots on a plot with appropriate temperature by adding blocks atop the existing terrain progressively. To not alter the elevation significantly (consequently temperature), the player should add blocks a single layer deep, but over the area of the plot until soil moisture content is lowered to the desired range for crop growth. Player can expect to see somewhere around 15% decrease by raising half the area.

Nutrients[edit | edit source]

There are three nutrients: Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K).

Care must be taken to prevent over-fertilizing as high nutrient levels can have a negative impact on the growth and yield rates. Ideal nutrient levels vary for each crop, using a soil sampler in locations of high wild growth will give an indication of suitable levels. Nutrient levels will also drop as crops deplete them through normal growth.

Using the soil sampler to check nutrient levels on a plot of land does not show the levels for that single block. It will display the levels for a 5x5 plot of blocks, in which each block contributes 4% of it's actual value to the displayed values for the plot.

Overcrowding[edit | edit source]

This also means that every plant inside this 5x5 plot counts into the checked farming area (including Grass, bushes and trees) for the simulation, which can lead to overcrowding even though the player planted only a single seed. Plants have a lower tolerance for crowding the less optimal the soil conditions; this can result in crowded crops from fewer plants than on a 100% optimal plot of land. Overcrowding will hurt survivability; if you plant 5 crops and they are "very over-crowded", 2 or 3 may die before maturing to harvest. (Currently, overcrowding seems random - two identical 5x5 plots may have different overcrowding status. It may prove difficult, and often fruitless to try fixing it.)

Changes in the environment take time to update. On standard settings, using fertilizers will not show different nutrient values when checked with the soil sampler for ~10 minutes. In certain cases if a plot has not updated in some time an update can be "forced" by a player altering an adjacent plot (e.g. by adding, subtracting, or building upon it, even if removed shortly after). Though devs have indicated asynchronous updates to plots will likely change in a future update.

Fertilizers[edit | edit source]

Fertilizers are used to change and amend the nutrients of the soil Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K).

They are applied to the entire 5x5 plot it is used on and each unit of nutrient in fertilizers correspond to 4% of the corresponding nutrient in the soil (shown by Soil Sampler).

Crop temperature and moisture preferences[edit | edit source]

Plant Habitat Temperature Ranges (oC) Moisture Ranges (%) Salt Ranges (%) Pollution (%) Absorb
CO2 (ppm)
Time to
Maturity
(Hours)
Сollected
resources
Ideal Extreme Ideal Extreme Ideal Extreme
Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Tolerance Max Min Max Resources
Wheat On Land 14 14 6 22 30 30 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Wheat
Desert Moss On Land 22 26 18 30 10 20 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Bunchgrass On Land 14 14 6 22 40 40 30 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Orchid On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
White Bursage On Land 22 26 18 30 10 20 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Ocean Spray On Land 14 22 10 22 50 60 50 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Barrel Cactus On Land 22 26 18 30 10 20 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Lattice Mushroom On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Plant Fibers
Sunflower On Land 6 10 6 22 30 30 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Sunflower
Kelp Underwater 10 26 6 30 10 90 0 100 50 100 40 110 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Kelp
King Fern On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Camas On Land -2 18 -2 22 40 60 40 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Camas Bulb
Seagrass Underwater 10 26 6 30 10 90 0 100 50 100 40 110 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Rice On Land 6 22 6 22 40 80 40 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 4 Rice
Cotton On Land 6 14 6 14 60 80 60 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 3 Cotton Boll
Buttonbush On Land 6 14 6 14 60 80 60 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Papaya On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 3 Papaya
Arctic Willow On Land -6 2 -6 2 20 50 20 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Amanita Mushroom On Land 6 14 6 14 60 80 50 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Amanita Mushrooms
Beans On Land 2 14 2 14 40 80 30 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Beans
Crimini Mushroom On Land 6 22 6 22 60 90 60 90 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Crimini Mushrooms
Huckleberry On Land -2 22 -2 22 50 60 50 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 4 Huckleberries
Cookeina Mushroom On Land 6 22 6 22 60 90 60 90 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Cookeina Mushrooms
Dwarf Willow On Land -6 -2 -6 2 20 50 10 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Urchin Underwater 10 26 6 30 10 90 0 100 50 100 40 110 10 70 0.0 19.2 1 2 Urchin
Bullrush On Land 6 14 6 14 60 90 60 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Waterweed Underwater 10 26 6 30 10 90 0 100 0 0 0 10 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Beets On Land 10 14 6 22 30 60 30 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Beet
Trillium On Land -2 14 -2 18 50 60 50 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Pumpkin On Land 6 22 6 22 60 60 50 80 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Pumpkin
Common Grass On Land 10 22 10 22 30 60 30 60 0 10 0 20 10 100 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Tomatoes On Land 18 22 6 22 30 40 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 3 Tomato
Taro On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Taro Root
Switchgrass On Land 6 14 6 14 30 50 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Saxifrage On Land -6 2 -6 2 10 50 10 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Salal On Land -2 10 -2 10 50 60 50 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Pitcher Plant On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 60 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Plant Fibers
Prickly Pear On Land 18 26 18 30 10 30 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 2 Prickly Pear Fruit
Corn On Land 6 10 6 22 30 40 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Corn
Pineapple On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 28.8 1 1 Pineapple
Bolete Mushroom On Land 6 22 6 22 60 90 60 90 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Bolete Mushrooms
Clam Underwater 10 26 6 30 10 90 0 100 50 100 40 110 10 70 0.0 19.2 1 2 Clam
Fern On Land -2 14 -2 18 50 60 50 60 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 4 Fiddleheads
Peat Moss On Land 6 22 6 22 60 90 60 90 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Lupine On Land -2 2 -2 2 40 50 20 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 2 Plant Fibers
Jointfir On Land 22 26 18 30 10 20 10 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 4 Plant Fibers
Heliconia On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Fireweed On Land -6 2 -6 2 20 50 20 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Fireweed Shoots
Filmy Fern On Land 14 22 14 22 80 90 70 100 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Deer Lichen On Land -6 2 -6 2 10 50 0 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Creosote Bush On Land 22 26 18 30 10 20 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Plant Fibers
Big Bluestem On Land 14 22 14 22 30 50 30 50 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 4 Plant Fibers
Agave On Land 22 26 18 26 10 20 0 30 0 10 0 20 10 70 -0.0 19.2 1 3 Agave Leaves



*plant regrows in half time after harvest. **numbers might not have an effect ***yield is lower when the nutrients are below 20 times the consumption and you get a bonus when they are above 300 times the consumption and the match is over 90% (there might be more to get the bonus) ****Temperature scales with global min/max temperatures on the server, and each in game adjusted value seems to be calculated as shown (default server settings having a 40°C range from -10°C to 30°C):

GlobalTempRange = GlobalMaxTemp - GlobalMinTemp

AdjustedValue = (BaseValue * GlobalTempRange) + GlobalMinTemp
(This is Outdated) This graph shows the temperature and moisture requirements of the edible plants. The solid color rectangle shows the optimum for that plant and the larger translucent rectangle of the same color shows the min/max range for that plant.