Ploughing

Ploughing is a skill that allows a bull to be harnessed to a plow to create a Vegetable Field. Fields grow vegetables similar to how greenhouses grow grass.

Tuition

The skill is available at a School of Worship.

• 100 cabbages
• 100 carrots
• 100 leeks
• 100 onions
• 100 peppers
• 100 cucumbers
• 100 watermelons

Usage

With the ploughing skill, you will receive a new option, to make a Mouldboard Plough, on a Carpentry Shop equipped with a Vise Bench.

The Mouldboard Plough can be equipped on a Bull that is located inside a Ranch.

Site Selection

A bull that has been harnessed will have a new option, Instruct... Start. Once selected, your main will display Walk to the task location, and start a suitable Farming project.

Proceed to a location you would like to plow. The site must meet a number of conditions:

• The location must be compatible with the seeds you wish to use (e.g., grass for cabbage, sand for onions, etc.) (This may need clarifying, I was able to plant onions and peppers in a field surrounded by grass) Silden (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2018 (IST)
• It is possible to plough a site that has a mix of terrain (eg. Dirt and Grass)
• It is possible to plant peppers in a field that has mixed grass and dirt, and plant onions in a field that is on just grass.
• It cannot be too close to a ranch (you will get a popup if you're too close, which seemed to be about 7 coords)
• It must be flat (you will get a popup if it's not)
• It must not be close to any existing plants (you will get a popup if there's plants in range)
• The bull needs to be close (you will get a popup if the bull cannot walk that far, 20 coords was too far)
• It cannot be close to another field (seems to be about 5 coords east-west but allowed one just one coord apart north-south)

Preparing Field

Create a field by selecting (Self -> Projects -> Farming -> Plough Field)

• A field measuring 5 coords east-west and 8 coords north-south centered on your location at the point of selecting plough field will be built
• The field size and orientation are preset. It isn't possible to rotate them. Where you are standing when you Start a field is the center point of the field.
• The bull will walk to the site, plough it for 4 minutes, then return to the ranch, after dropping onto the floor your plough.
• It is possible for the plough to break, giving you a Broken 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"
• You can plant any veg regardless of the underlying terrain (so you can plant pepper or onions in a field surrounded with grass)
• Growing takes 20 minutes, after which you can harvest.
• You will receive
  • your original seeds
  • 50x yield (so a Mut's Fruition which would generate you 2 cabbage will generate you 100 cabbage; a Ptah's Breed Pepper which would generate you 3 peppers will generate you 150 peppers)
  • Insect (if you have skill)
• 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, you will receive a message stating that "This field can no longer support another crop cycle." It is currently unknown whether the field will eventually recover, or if it's permanently exhausted (as with stone quarries).

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 plowing 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.

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