Wheat Domestication Flow Chart

[dabman10 34]

1. Daveris/Teranz: Actually the current way it's set up would mimic more realistic adaptation. Wheat doesn't know what kind of seed to create that will best be suited to the environment it's in. Every type of cultured seed would be the result of random mutations, and the ones that are best suited for their environments will grow faster, reproduce more, and that is called adaptation. What you're talking about would not mimic real adaptation, because the only type of seed that can spawn is the best one.

2. As someone already said, the direct sunlight requirement could probably be done similar to how the forge is set up. Your wheat would not die when the sun goes down!

3. Wild wheat, wheat, and cave wheat will all be able to grow in caves under the current set up, so no worries there.

4. Also under the current setup, you would have to replow fields when growing cultured wheat varieties. This is because after they are harvested, the dirt block they were growing on becomes 'barren' since the high-yield variety unsustainably uses up the dirt's nutrients.

[Peffern 94]

In addition to species, there should be traits (see forestry's bees) in addition to species mutations there should be other kinds. So I could eventually breed my hardy wheat to the point where it could survive torchlight. And then maybe, if you could breed out the dependence on water, you could grow hellwheat.

[dabman10 34]

Lumireaver: It might seem like slim chance, but honestly how long does it take someone to make a bronze anvil? It has taken me hours and hours, so it would seem realistic to make reaching tier-3 level farming somewhat difficult as well. Here's an example:

1. Someone planting 30-40 wild wheat would only take about an hour of foraging (max)

2. After harvesting this, the player would have ~75 wild wheat seeds.

3. A second harvest would give about ~150 wild wheat seeds. At this point, it is likely the player would already be accumulating several regular wheat seeds.

4. After a 3rd harvest, it's very likely the player would have around 10-15 wheat seeds. Once the player is planting this variety, it will be very quick to ramp up production as it currently is.

5. After 3 harvests of regular wheat, the player's wheat farm would have cycled through more than 100 wheat. At this point, it is highly likely the player will have received at least one variety of cultured wheat.

Would someone realistically be able to get to tier 3 after 4-5 hours of playing? I would say yes.

[Lumireaver 101]

Lumireaver: It might seem like slim chance, but honestly how long does it take someone to make a bronze anvil? It has taken me hours and hours, so it would seem realistic to make reaching tier-3 level farming somewhat difficult as well. Here's an example:

1. Someone planting 30-40 wild wheat would only take about an hour of foraging (max)

2. After harvesting this, the player would have ~75 wild wheat seeds.

3. A second harvest would give about ~150 wild wheat seeds. At this point, it is likely the player would already be accumulating several regular wheat seeds.

4. After a 3rd harvest, it's very likely the player would have around 10-15 wheat seeds. Once the player is planting this variety, it will be very quick to ramp up production as it currently is.

5. After 3 harvests of regular wheat, the player's wheat farm would have cycled through more than 100 wheat. At this point, it is highly likely the player will have received at least one variety of cultured wheat.

Would someone realistically be able to get to tier 3 after 4-5 hours of playing? I would say yes.

Aye, retracting what I said earlier. The chance is certainly not too low. Also the bigger the farm the greater the chance. (Which means the more work the player puts in, the greater the pay off... Always a good thing.) I still feel that it wouldn't hurt if fertilizer could slightly up the chance of receiving the climate appropriate seeds over other mutations...the odds of receiving a mutation should stay the same. ...The only reason I'm not 100% is because if the RNG is going to screw you, it's going to screw you regardless of any hard advantage you should have.

[JDCollie 66]

I love this idea. Granted, with the agriculture update in the works, it may be somewhat obsolete, but I am all for seeing this getting implemented.

(I would like to see further tiers, especially along the Hardy Wheat, so that we could have things like the Hellwheat that has been suggested above )

[barkingnoise 19]

This is an absolutely amazing set up! I love it!

[redundantusage 330]

Where the real challenge for the would-be farmer comes in might be gathering and creation of fertilizers. Fertilizers are mixtures of a variety of different things to promote growth for different types of vegetation, not just a piece of bonemeal. Giving the potential ability to add things like potash, lime, or whatever is deemed viable would mean the extra work that in my mind characterizes this mod. Plus, the materials used in making the fertilizer could be a modifier for how the plant grows and yields in addition to whatever other characteristics the normal plant has.

From a quick search, some common componants of fertilizers as found in wikipedia:

Macronutrients:

Nitrogen

Phosphorus

Potassium

Calcium

Magnesium

Sulfur

Micronutrients

Boron

Chlorine

Copper

Iron

Manganese

Molybdenum

Zinc

Even if say four macronutrients and four micronutrients were implemented, with a 3 macro 1 micro ration, you're still looking at a potential of 256 combinations to provide a wide scale of experimentation to add to this system.

Just add a means of distilling some of these products from existing materials and maybe a fertilizer combination table of some sort, and you're good to go.

[Lumireaver 101]

Shifting the (advanced player's) farming focus over to fertilization and soil types is a neat idea as long as it only provided incentive to do it correctly...as opposed to being the only way to cultivate a decent farm. It could stand to be simplified a bit though. ...Also I'm not so sure fertilizer works that way...but I don't have a green thumb.

Everything that follows, is one big, poorly thought out (bunch of dissociated) example(s):

First off, forget random (quantity) drops. Greater drops would correlate with matching soil/fertilizer types, and growth times (assuming the appropriate climate) would also be modified accordingly. ...Currently dirt blocks change colour depending on the soil underneath them. In addition to this, each colour of soil could have different values in three categories. (Silt/clay/sand - Values would be assigned in accordance with their associated rock types, IE: Chalk -> Clay-rich soil...!) Tilled chalk-soil would be best for plants with high water requirements. Tilled conglomerate-soil, on the other hand would, be best for plants that drown easily. (This soil type would also need to be tended to more frequently...)

I suppose more delicate plants would require their soil to be within a certain specific range or they would drown or dry out.

- note, if you're reading this post, you'll probably sense a slight disconnect here as my train of thought veered sharply in another direction because I don't like where I'm going with this 'soil values' thing -

After tilling, but before planting, you could apply fertilizer to a soil block. This would increase the loaminess of the soil. Each day (as long as a crop is growing) the loam value of that block would drop. The lower the loam value at harvest, the lower the drops? Over fertilization would result in terrible yields. Absurdly negative values result in the soil turning into sand or arid dirt and minimal yields. Note that you wouldn't be able to apply fertilizer after a crop is planted.

Not irrigating at all in a desert biome might automatically turn dirt into arid dirt..?