Crops

There are a variety of crops available to grow. They are broken up into two categories; Greenhouse Veggies and Field Crops.

Greenhouse vegetables grow in about a month, although they may not all ripen on the same day. You have to plant new seedlings after every harvest.

Field crops are annual. (needs confirmation. In some cases crops seem to fully grow from September to April as well.)

## Greenhouse Vegetables (and some fruits)

Tip: To maximize profit, think about what food from the cook book recipes you want to produce and plant acordingly. For example, Rafter's soup (fish + chili peppers + bell pepper) is the most expensive food item you can mass produce easily (using the fish bug). For that you have to plant 2/5 bell peppers and 3/5 chili peppers.

## Field Crops

(Note that some crops can be planted in September and survive the winter, producing higher yields than if planted in Spring. The game tells us Wheat and Canola are two such crops; others need to be tested. EDIT: Barley seems to work as well.)

Wheat and Barley generate straw in addition to grain, which can be collected with the square baler.

Efficiency (how many ton of grain grow per hA for which type of crop) still needs to be tested.)

1: You only have to buy seeds if you intend to seed fields yourself. If you employ a worker to do it, the price is the same for any type of seeds.

2: These crops can be planted in September for higher yields (or spring harvest - needs confirmation)

3: Maize (a.k.a. "corn") requires a different header attachment on the harvester or combine to harvest.

4: Grass can be sown like a crop, and cut down with either a mower or grain header attachment (the latter of which is MUCH faster, FYI, though you will get an error message saying this is the wrong tool for the job) but there is no harvest produced by cutting grass. Paid helpers told to "Harvest & Sell" grass will cut it down with a Grain Combine. You can also tell them to plow right over the grass to save a step, but that will cause the game to pester you with repeated "you are destroying the crops that grow here" messages until they finish.

The purpose of grass is not entirely confirmed at this time, but is suspected to be related to Crop Rotation: Crop Rotation is real-world farming strategy begun in the middle ages, to avoid depleting soil nutrients by planting the same crop in the same field year after year. The basic 4-cycle example is to have 4 fields for 3 types of crop, rotating them each year, and leaving one field empty, or "fallow" for a year so the soil can recuperate. Different plants don't all consume the same nutrients from soil, but they all take something. Your Farm Statistics panel will count some of your newly acquired fields as "Fallow", as in nothing growing on it. ***If*** the game is actually expecting you to employ Crop Rotation (possibly by reducing yields by a % if you continuously plant the same crop year after year) then Grass is probably intended to be used as a placeholder to help you remember which field is supposed to be "fallow" that year.

Frankly, given the number of fields you can eventually be expected to manage in this game, it would be just as, if not MORE believable that the game developers would cut us some slack and leave Crop Rotation out of it. Having to keep detailed records of each field's history is not very "fun"! -\_-