Ploughing

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.

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

• 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 "Instruct... Start", this will produce the message Walk to the task location, and start a suitable Farming project.
• You will get a new menu option, Self > Projects > Farming > Plough Field. Select this as the desired location of your field.

The site must meet a number of conditions:

• 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)

Note:

• 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 (although read note in vegetable section below as you may not get back any yield)

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
• The plough can break, if that happens, it will drop on the floor and return a Broken Plough

• If the bull dies in the process, the floor 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 20 minutes, after which you can harvest.
• You will need complimentary land to the seed. A site with a combination of dirt and grass spots successfully grew peppers, but a site with predominantly sand with an edge of grass only grew onions and no other vegetables.
• A field yield will tell you after clicking Harvest "Your field didn't produce anything useful. Maybe the land is not suitable?"

Vegetable	Terrain	Variations
Cabbage	Grass
Carrots	Grass	Osiris's Orange (1), Green Leaf (2)
Cucumber	Grass
Eggplant	Not yet in-game
Garlic	Sand
Leeks	Sand
Onions	Sand
Pepper	Dirt
Watermelon	Grass

• You will receive
  • your original seeds
  • 50x yield (so a Mut's Fruition Cabbage Seed which would generate 2 Cabbage when grown in the traditional fashion, will generate 100 cabbage on field harvest; a Ptah's Breed Pepper Seed which would generate 3 Peppers will generate 150 peppers)
  • Insect (may receive, 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, it will disappear and you will receive a message stating that "This field can no longer support another crop cycle."
  • It is currently unknown whether the area that hosted the field will eventually recover to a natural state, or if it is permanently damaged (much the same as the way Stone Quarries exhaust the deposit). However, it has been possible to re-plough the same coordinate after a field is exhausted (at least once more).

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"