Farming improvement suggestions

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:12 am

With the addition of rivers as water sources and speaking with Evelyn regarding farming, I have had some ideas for improvements to the farming system that might be implemented at some point in the future when such is a priority.

1. Fertilizers. Such could be gathered or produced on one's own, or purchased from a shop. Usage of fertilizers would have a chance to increase each crop's number of bites, which would also increase its selling price, if I understand the pricing correctly.

2. Weeding. Various weeds would grow in fields, and would have to be removed, lest the crops suffer. Crops could lose their number of bites depending on how many weeds are present, and could possibly die out completely and be replaced by the weed, if the number of bites reaches zero. Perhaps some kind of weed-killer could be employed to slow the growth of weeds.

3. Pests. Both animal and insect varieties. Birds could countered by placing scarecrows. Insects could be countered by applying various genre-appropriate pesticides.

4. Guard animals. Acquire a trained dog to stay near the fields and chase off wildlife that might eat the crops, as well as discourage thieves.

5. Perhaps certain druidic channelers could use their druidry somehow on the fields to cause a slight decrease in the time it takes for the current crop to be ready to harvest.

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:32 am

A few more ideas: The planting of grain, threshing the grain with a flail, and grinding the grain in a mill to produce flour which could be used in cooking. The grain could perhaps be ground by hand without a mill, though this would of course take much longer.

Post by **Rias** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:38 am

Nice ideas, keep em coming. Do want farming/cooking improvements.

KianTheArcher · Post by **KianTheArcher** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:07 pm

Well, this could serve as a raw cast potential for druidry. When in certain areas, it causes the ground to become more fertile for a time depending on the number of channels up. Or even accelerates the growth of local flora based on number of channels.

Post by **Rias** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:11 pm

I like.

Post by **Lun** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:45 pm

I'm surprised no one has suggested a plow.
Tilling a fresh plot of soil is extremely time consuming and energy consuming! I think that carpenters should be able to craft plows that can be hitched onto a mount.
The plow can be used by the command "PLOW" rather than "TILL" and will make plantable soil quicker than if a person had to till by hand.

Soil that's left unplanted should deteriorate over time. Similar to how a mine collapses after a week without any fortification? Planting in soil will "reset" the deterioration time and plants that remain in the soil would essentially make the soil as it is now, permanent.

We should be able to make popcorn from corn.

Though it only really applies in real life to certain breeds of corn. We could get popcorn-corn stalks and corn-corn stalks!

Different seed packets.

Evelyn · Post by **Evelyn** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:11 pm

I've never thought about a plow

And popcorn, yes please!!

Blair · Post by **Blair** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:12 am

The yield for any plot should decrease after each planting. Planting different crops, use fertilizer, or move to a different plot to ensure maximum yield.

Post by **Lun** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:30 am

A fun farming technique in real life is known as crop rotation. This is when farmers allow the land to "recover" their nutritional value. This system can later lead to farmers to own domesticated animals for meat and riln.
One example is a four-turn crop cycle. While we don't have seasons, it's still a nice touch since it'll help improve yield and quality of crops planted.
For example, planting turnip, barley, clover, and wheat and returning back to turnip, you're pretty much maximizing your possible plot gain without lowering productivity of the plots, and without using fertilizer. Fertilizer has long-term negative effects that could be worked on in the future, such as making magical gigantic worms appear in your crops.
Barley and wheat are both edible crops that can be turned into bread (Hey, baking could be a new skill!)
Clovers and turnip can be used as food for livestock. You can also put them into a compost heap in order to make natural fertilizer that you can use on your farm.

Isiaa · Post by **Isiaa** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:13 am

Turnip soup, turnip bread, boiled turnips, roasted turnips. And you want to feed them to animals?

Post by **Lun** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:20 am

That was just an idea!

There's many applications of turnip, but the original intention of planting turnips was to feed livestock over the winter season.

Evelyn · Post by **Evelyn** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:41 am

I love the new water command thingy, it's very nifty!

I was thinking would it possible at all to have it tell you when your crops are fully watered? Like a message that says, 'All of the crops here have been watered?

I know you can do look soil and stuff, just a suggestion.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:36 pm

1) Burning fields. Light the suckers on fire and watch em burn.
2) Crops that release smoke with fun consequences when burned.

Kiyaani · Post by **Kiyaani** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:56 pm

I'd like to be able to burn parchment before burning fields. That's just mean

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:24 pm

Parchment? What about books? =P

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:29 pm

Burn fields not books!

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:51 pm

The only way I see fields being burnable is if everything had died and dried up from lack of care. Then someone could come burn it, till it again and have a fresh field ready to go.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:37 pm

Oh, with the appropriate amount of fuel they'll burn just like anything else.

KianTheArcher · Post by **KianTheArcher** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:59 pm

I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming.

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:01 am

Burning fields is a normal and common practice, however, I (and Rias will agree with me) am not about to provide trouble makers a blatant way to grief other players who simply wish to be left alone and make some riln.

By the same logic we could make Acarin's home burnable too, which I don't think he'd appreciate very much.

Anyhow, keep bringing the good ideas. I like a lot of what I'm reading in this thread.

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:21 am

[quote=KianTheArcher]I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming.[/quote]
The resultant ash is very good fertilizer.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:00 pm

[quote=Landion]Burning fields is a normal and common practice, however, I (and Rias will agree with me) am not about to provide trouble makers a blatant way to grief other players who simply wish to be left alone and make some riln.

By the same logic we could make Acarin's home burnable too, which I don't think he'd appreciate very much.

Anyhow, keep bringing the good ideas. I like a lot of what I'm reading in this thread.[/quote]

Will the hate never stop?

KianTheArcher · Post by **KianTheArcher** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:02 pm

[quote=Reynard][quote=KianTheArcher]I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming.[/quote]
The resultant ash is very good fertilizer.[/quote]

Let me rephrase.

I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming, considering the most use out of this would be for griefy purposes rather than good reason.

Post by **Lun** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:24 pm

Ash isn't good fertilizer at all... To be exact, you can use a small amount of it. However, it does chaos on the soil's pH among other things.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:26 pm

[quote=KianTheArcher][quote=Reynard][quote=KianTheArcher]I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming.[/quote]
The resultant ash is very good fertilizer.[/quote]

Let me rephrase.

I'm not really sure how burning fields would be an actual improvement to farming, considering the most use out of this would be for griefy purposes rather than good reason.[/quote]

See suggestion two. Smoke released from burning certain new crops with amusing effects. More fun = improvement.

I'd be happy to host the first field burning party