Farming

Farming is a game mechanic that allows you to grow your own food. Most of the different crops have many common attributes. It's recommended that you read the starter guide before farming because you will need to make a hoe before you can begin planting crops.

Natural Generation

Wild Crops are created during world generation and can be found all over the world. Breaking these crops (left mouse button) is essential for gathering seeds to plant crops on farmland. Seeds can also be found in loot vessels located in ruins.

Soil, Nutrients, and Farmland

Four different types of naturally occurring soil exist in the world at different fertility rates: barren, low, medium, and high (called "terra preta"). Each has according starting levels of nutrients: 5%, 25%, 50%, 80%. Soil retains its fertility levels when blocks are gathered and placed elsewhere, but farmland blocks are destroyed if you attempt to remove them by breaking. Compost is a player generated soil type, each block is created by sealing 64 rot in a barrel for 20 days. Compost has nutrient levels of 65%.

Using a hoe + right mouse button on a soil block creates dry farmland. Seeds may be planted on dry farmland, but crops will not grow. The dry farmland must be within 3 blocks of a water source block for the farmland to convert to moist farmland. The other solution to create moist farmland is daily watering using a watering can.

All soil (dirt, dry or moist farmland) has 3 nutrient levels, N, P, and K. Each crop consumes one of these nutrients. Some crops require higher values of nutrients than others (as shown in the table below). Crop growth rates also differ. Each crop has different total growth speed, which is shown by the number of "growth days".

When crops grow from one stage to the next, they consume nutrients from the farmland on which they are planted. The required nutrient is the nutrient that will be consumed, reducing the concentration of that nutrient in the farmland. The amount of the nutrient required (per growth stage) is determined by dividing the Nutrient Consumption by the number of growth stages.

Nutrients in farmland slowly replenish over time and return to the maximum level per soil type. (Ex: Medium fertility will only regain nutrients to original levels) The rate of nutrient replenishment is slower with a crop, faster when empty, and even faster when one of the three different fertilizer types are applied to the soil (saltpeter, potash, and bone meal). Using a fertilizer is the only time you can cause a soil type to exceed the maximum nutrient level of the soil type.

Crops

To harvest, left click on the crop with an empty hand or harvesting tool (knife or scythe). Fully mature crops will return seeds, food, and in the case of flax, fiber. All fully mature crops have about a 5% chance to drop an extra seed when harvested. Each crop is characterized by a set of Crop Properties. Crop properties consist of the following individual properties:

• Growth Stages - The number of growth stages for a crop.
• Total Growth Days - The number of in game days it takes for a crop to be fully grown (harvestable).
• Required Nutrient - The type of nutrient (N, P, K) consumed from the farmland when a crop grows to the next stage.
• Nutrient Consumption - The total amount of the required nutrient that will be consumed over the lifetime of a crop.

Table of Available Crops

Crop	Product	Growth Stages	Total Growth Days	Required Nutrient	Nutrient Consumption
Carrot		7	4	K	40
Flax		9	4.2	K	50
Onion		7	3.6	P	35
Spelt		9	4.4	N	40
Turnip	File:Turnip.png	5	3	N	30
Parsnip		8	6	P	20
Rice		10	4.2	K	50
Rye		9	5	N	40
Soybean		11	5.4	K	35
Pumpkin	Need Image	8	3.5	P	30
Cabbage	Need Image	12	6.5	N	40

Food and Cooking

See cooking for more information on player nutrition and preparing foods to eat.

Farming Video Tutorial

The video includes explanations of soil nutrients, converting soil to farmland, and crop growth rates. This video includes a view of all agricultural crops except pumpkins and does not include use of fertilizers.

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