Agriculture and farming ideas

[Trenix 14]

If you plant crops near water/irrigate them, those plants will not be affected by seasonal droughts that hapen when there is no rain for a month or so. And without water crops don't grow. So actually planting near water/irrigating will make your crops grow faster most of the time, unless you have a very rainy season. At the same time crops without this will grow as well, only slower.And we don't irrigate all fields IRL becouse it is to expensive to do if you're far away from water source such as lake, many water sources such as rivers are polluted and would do no good for your crops, and space that contains farmland suitable for irrigation is finite and much much smaller than what we need.All in all the mechanic is believable enough, and while I liked the old mechanic better (in fact I thought it was still in place, but whatever ) I can clearly see the reasoning behind removing it.

There is no evidence that shows that crops wont grow from the lack of water and droughts don't really happen anywhere aside from deserts. If your crops are close to a water source, close being still miles away from it, your crops would pretty much be forever hydrated from what I've recently read into. In fact, over-watering can actually slow a crop's growth because it will suffocate it's roots and may eventually cause root rot. The lack of nutrients, light, and temperature are more things that contribute to the slowing of a plant's growth, but not water and it definitely doesn't make crops grow faster.

[Reyvinn 18]

Well to show you where I come from, my dad is a farmer in central Europe. And I help him when I have time to do so. And I was raised on a farm. We have very big (couple km wide) river 3km from our home. No deserts in several hundred kilometers. And I can tell you year after year there are times with less water and times with more water. When it is not raining crops stop growing, or at least slow down rapidly. Maybe not all of them at the same time and at the same rate, but crops like maize are heavily dependent on constant supply of water for maximum growth. So sorry, droughts happen all the time, and most of the time they won't deny harvest, but will delay it and/or make it smaller.

I totally agree that too much water is in some cases worse than not enough water, but that's another topic.

Also different soils behave differently, heavy soils hold water in them for much longe for example. But you can't tell me that having river lake or pond close by has anythng to do with amount of water in the soil. Unless of course you use irrigation system, and that's what we're doing when we dig to make our farms bigger (hope you know what I mean).

I'd like to explain more if you wish to learn something from more practical point of view

[Trenix 14]

The lack of water will make crops smaller, that is true, but not slow it's growth. When I was reading about dry farming, farmers do it intentionally because the more water your crops have, the bigger they get but the tastes of them gets more watered down. Eating a vegetable which was dry farmed, will be smaller but far more tastier. So it's not like the lack of water will delay the production of vegetable, it'll only make it bigger because it's absorbed more water. It might replenish your thirst more but I doubt it'll do much more for your hunger. That part is based on the nutrients in your soil.

[Regnilse 21]

Water in moderation is always better than no water, ask any farmer from Saskatchewan to Texas. Crops will mature fuller, faster and better than with out it.

 

Planting on hydrated land should give a benefit over non-hydrated land. It should also be possible to plant crops on non-hydrated land both for believability and for balance, because of the restriction of placing water sources.

I am quite happy with the way the mechanic is now, if a change must be made I feel like the 4 block hydration seems low and could be increased, there could also be a way for land to be hydrated based on the rain and terrain.

 

That's all I would change right now, and I don't really think its nessicary.

[Trenix 14]

I'm just relying on online sources, if you have some sort of evidence that crops will mature faster if watered then I'll believe you. I've been looking all around the internet and have found nothing so far. Yes the crops will be bigger if watered, but that's because of all of the water you gave them, they're simply absorbing it. That's just what plants do, they suck up the water and store it for later use when days get dry. The only time water will matter is when the crop doesn't have enough of it, so it begins dying. However it'll still technically continue to mature as it's dying.

[Regnilse 21]

Whether is does or doesn't make crops grow faster shouldn't really matter with the in game mechanic. Water makes thing grow better, same with in game, it just makes it slower.

 

Now as far as I know you can harvest crops early but with decreased yields(I could be wrong on this, not 100%), so if non-hydrated crops grow slower they wont be fully grown during your harvests so you get lower yields, which is basically what happens anyway.

 

That's basically why I don't think the hydration needs to change. It gets a reasonable result through a different method.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Now as far as I know you can harvest crops early but with decreased yields(I could be wrong on this, not 100%)

 

This is incorrect. Either the plant is ready to harvest and it drops a full piece of food, or it is not, and it only drops seeds. The confusion here is that the "ready to harvest" stage can actually be before the plant switches to the final texture, and before the hoe mode switches to green. If you want to guess before you have both of these obvious indicators, you may get lucky and the crop might give you a harvest (which will be the same weight as if you had waited until it was completely ready), or you may have misjudged and you get nothing but seeds.

[Regnilse 21]

Interesting. I guess I just got lucky then.