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

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 plough. The site must meet a number of conditions:

• 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)
• 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
• 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?"
• 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"