Ploughing
From A Wiki in the Desert
| Ploughing | ||||||||||||||||
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| (Skill - Worship) | ||||||||||||||||
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Uses
Ploughing is a skill that allows a Bull to be harnessed to a Mouldboard Plough to create a Vegetable Field. Fields grow vegetables similar to how greenhouses grow grass. The skill is also required to plant vegetable seeds in the field, though it is not required to harvest grown vegetables from a field.
With the ploughing skill, you will receive a new option, to make a Mouldboard Plough, on a Crafting Bench equipped with a Vice Bench.
The Mouldboard Plough can be equipped on a Bull that is located inside a Ranch. In order to plough a field, you must also have filled the XP bar for Farming 1.
Site Selection
- With a Mouldboard Plough in inventory, a bull in a ranch will have the option "Attach Plough". Selecting this will produce the message With a lasso you can plough fields across the land.
- With a Lasso in inventory, you will get an option Plough a field or replough an existing field. Selecting plough a field will bring up a build menu and you can reposition your field similar to placing an outdoor building.
Positioning the site:
- As you position the site before you build it, the type of field can change between grass, dirt, and sand depending on the center coordinate of the field's current position. As such, you can move and rotate your field to find the correct spot and field type you want before finishing the build.
- The bull will walk to the site and plow the field automatically, which takes about 4 minutes. You can watch as the bull meticulously works if you wish or perform some other activity in the meantime.
Note:
- You must also have Farming skill 1
- A field that is torn down before the crop is harvested will Not return the seeds.
The ploughed area will let you plant any type of seed, regardless. But when it's time to harvest, you will get a land is not suitable message and zero yield.
Preparing Field
- The plough has a chance to break on every use. If that happens, it will drop on the ground and return a Broken Plough.
- If the bull dies in the process, the ground will have bones, leather and the plough.
- Attempting to plant seeds during ploughing will produce a popup (The Vegetable Field is busy. Please wait).
Planting Vegetables
- You will require exactly 5 seeds of the same type to plant. (With less, you get a popup, "To sow this field you need: 5 Veg Seeds: Type")
- Growing takes ~2 hours, after which you can harvest.
- The color of the site indicates the type of soil. Green is Grass only, Sandy White is Sand only, Brown is Dirt only.
- A field yield from the wrong type will tell you after clicking Harvest "Your field didn't produce anything useful. Maybe the land is not suitable?"
- After harvesting, You will receive
- 25 farming xp per field harvested
- your original seeds back
- 10x yield, with possible rounding shenanigans (received 30 and 40 for Ra's Breed garlic, 30 for Ma'at's Garden cucumbers, and 90 for Heket's Crop garlic)
- a guaranteed crop Insect
- A field can be replanted immediately after harvesting.
- After a certain number of harvests (10?), a field will be rendered unsuitable for farming. When the field is exhausted, it will disappear and you will receive a message stating that "This field can no longer support another crop cycle."
- It is possible to replough a new field in exactly the same place
- If you accidentally plant the wrong seeds, your only viable choice is to allow them to grow and then harvest with an error message. Tearing down the field before harvesting will Not return your seeds.
Planting Grain
- Instead of vegetables, you may instead select the option to grow grass on the field. You do not need any seeds to start this process.
- Growing grass takes much longer than vegetables. After 3 hours the field will say the grass is partially grown and may be harvested starting at that time. By 7 hours the grass is fully grown.
- The yield seems dependent on the length of time grown, the scythe/basket type you are holding to harvest with, possibly your grass harvesting skill. More testing needed
- After harvest, the grass will show up on the field in little knocked over piles. You need to select the field again to actually collect the grass.
- If the grass is left to grow too long it will "go to seed" for lower yield (no actual seeds are given).
Other Notes
- Veggies harvested from a field do not apply toward offlining.
- Grain cannot be planted (these are veggie fields).
- Water tables are unaffected by farming in vegetable fields.
- Bulls risk sudden death while ploughing fields. Bulls that expire in this way will return bones and leather.
- Per Malard, a Bull can work fields at least 10 times before risking death.
- It is unknown if a Bull can recover back to a fully healthy state, if left unworked for a time.
What the devs say
- "We're calling it 'ploughing' instead of 'plowing' because I guess we're an English game now"
- "We're gonna do ploughing"
- "My idea for how ploughing should work is that you plant a field, and you have to 'turn it over' every 24 hours, sort of like greenhouse, but for veggies"
- "The problem is, there is no room for ploughing with pyramids, crossbreeding, region/faction bonuses, and aqueducts."
- "Ploughing will be a skill, not a tech"
Layout for 12 Fields
General layout for getting 12 fields around a ranch, with a little wiggle room for hitting terrain types.
