Minimising damage from crop blight - result of a small experiment

[AirToob]

I have read several good suggestions for laying out crop fields to make them as "blight-proof" as possible.

I tried this one, mainly to see how blight actually strikes:

I laid out an area for barley, containing a pattern of 6x6 mini barley fields, each containing just ONE space, Each mini-field is separated from its neighbours by one space, so a blighted crop can't infect its neighbours.

When blight struck, it hit about 4 or 5 of these 36 mini-fields at random, but only once, with no further spread. That was a good thing. It also meant that I could concentrate cutting operations on the other fields. >> Blighted crops in the mini-fields don't infect others, and so can be left to die. << Edit

The downside is that 36 mini crop fields are something of pain to maintain. At the end of the season I have to select each of the 36 in turn and tick the "Don't Sow" box. Then at the beginning of the next season I have to do this again and un-tick the "Don't Sow" box.

SUGGESTION: It would be really nice if I could select them all first and then tick the box just once for all of them. This isn't needed for ordinary crop fields, of course.

The other downside, is that the whole crop takes up almost 4 times the ground area that a normal crop field would. I don't see this as necessarily a big problem.

There is another unexpected upside: for some reason, mushrooms grow profusely in the gaps between the growing barley!

Conclusion: I'll stick with this pattern and see how I get on with it. Losing only about 4 out of 36 to blight may be worth the pain of having to individually control each of the mini-fields (and maybe some genius developer will let me multi-select those mini-fields.)

I should also say that I am not totally clear about when to tick the "don't sow" box at the end of the growing season, where crops are being harvested and then being automatically replanted, not necessarily all at the same time.

[galadon3]

Yea tbh a global command to set a certain crop to "seed" "not seed" would be a very nice thing.
I usually use 5*5 fields and just kinda live with having to fight blights, just because I don't like the look of the 1-tile fields^^ But even then clicking through like 12 fields (especially since it often needs several clicks till you got the field selected, not the crops themselves) is kinda needlessly complicated.

[AirToob]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Yea tbh a global command to set a certain crop to "seed" "not seed" would be a very nice thing.

Yes indeed... have you raised that in the Suggestions forum?

[galadon3]

I think I saw the suggestion there once, but I guess there is no damage bringing it up again.

EDIT: ok added a thread there

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1029780/discussions/2/3418810706129140419/

[AirToob]

Thanks, I have done my best to give it a boost.

[Dennis]

Wooooah Wait just a minute...

I have to tell my 30+ Skill Botany peeps to NOT sow each individual crop zone in the inappropriate season or I lose whole fields of seeds? That explains why I can't keep carrot seeds around. I thought the Goats just had a carrot addiction.

The dude skills up to learn how to sow/grow beets and then herbs. But still never learns to wait and sow in the appropriate season?

[galadon3]

No unless you stop them from sowing they will only stop if the temperature is under the growth temperature (for most 5 degree), wich means even in some warmer days of early winter they might still sow and especially in cold snaps you have a good chance of those plants dying.

I usually do for example two harvests of barley and after the second is seeded sometime in summer I forbid those fields from being seeded, so they harvest in autumn and don't re-seed until I allow it again in next spring.

[AirToob]

Originally posted by galadon3:

No unless you stop them from sowing they will only stop if the temperature is under the growth temperature (for most 5 degree), which means even in some warmer days of early winter they might still sow and especially in cold snaps you have a good chance of those plants dying.

What is the latest safe day (in autumn?) for sowing (say) Barley or Beet, or (better, perhaps) how can I work this out for myself?

[Graf Schokola]

A season time table for sowing like the working time table will be nice.

[galadon3]

well the crops have a growth time till they are ready to be harvested, count that number of days back from like end-autumn.
You have to take into account that they do not progress in times the temperature is under their growth-temperature, so in autumn (especially at night) you can already loose some growth-time, in winter you have at best some hours (beets actually have a 1 degree growth-temp so they can work a bit better), often none.

So basically look how long it takes for the crop to reach the status you want to harvest it and then calculate back from lets say late autumn (so for example if it needs 10 days, I would at best sow in the last days of summer, last day can already be dicey since you might loose time in the autumn nights.

Thanks to the at least somewhat RNGey temperatures and different growth times you can't actually give hard numbers, I tend to not sow anymore after the first half of summer in general (well save for flax wich so much overproduces seed that I never stop sowing it, because it doesn't really bother me should some plants die in winter).

[AirToob]

Originally posted by galadon3:

well the crops have a growth time till they are ready to be harvested, count that number of days back from like end-autumn.
You have to take into account that they do not progress in times the temperature is under their growth-temperature, so in autumn (especially at night) you can already loose some growth-time, in winter you have at best some hours (beets actually have a 1 degree growth-temp so they can work a bit better), often none.

So basically look how long it takes for the crop to reach the status you want to harvest it and then calculate back from lets say late autumn (so for example if it needs 10 days, I would at best sow in the last days of summer, last day can already be dicey since you might loose time in the autumn nights.

Thanks to the at least somewhat RNGey temperatures and different growth times you can't actually give hard numbers, I tend to not sow anymore after the first half of summer in general (well save for flax wich so much overproduces seed that I never stop sowing it, because it doesn't really bother me should some plants die in winter).

Great info, thanks muchly.

[Storm]

Originally posted by AirToob:

I have read several good suggestions for laying out crop fields to make them as "blight-proof" as possible.

I tried this one, mainly to see how blight actually strikes:

I laid out an area for barley, containing a pattern of 6x6 mini barley fields, each containing just ONE space, Each mini-field is separated from its neighbours by one space, so a blighted crop can't infect its neighbours.

When blight struck, it hit about 4 or 5 of these 36 mini-fields at random, but only once, with no further spread. That was a good thing. It also meant that I could concentrate cutting operations on the other fields first.

The downside is that 36 mini crop fields are something of pain to maintain. At the end of the season I have to select each of the 36 in turn and tick the "Don't Sow" box. Then at the beginning of the next season I have to do this again and un-tick the "Don't Sow" box.

SUGGESTION: It would be really nice if I could select them all first and then tick the box just once for all of them. This isn't needed for ordinary crop fields, of course.

The other downside, is that the whole crop takes up almost 4 times the ground area that a normal crop field would. I don't see this as necessarily a big problem.

There is another unexpected upside: for some reason, mushrooms grow profusely in the gaps between the growing barley!

Conclusion: I'll stick with this pattern and see how I get on with it. Losing only about 4 out of 36 to blight may be worth the pain of having to individually control each of the mini-fields (and maybe some genius developer will let me multi-select those mini-fields.)

I should also say that I am not totally clear about when to tick the "don't sow" box at the end of the growing season, where crops are being harvested and then being automatically replanted, not necessarily all at the same time.

Bulk operations on multiple benches, zones, etc is a major UI issue actually. It makes the game much more tedious than it would be if it had these. Paste should work to multiple targets as well.

[AirToob]

Originally posted by AirToob:

I laid out an area for barley, containing a pattern of 6x6 mini barley fields, each containing just ONE space, Each mini-field is separated from its neighbours by one space, so a blighted crop can't infect its neighbours.

When blight struck, it hit about 4 or 5 of these 36 mini-fields at random, but only once, with no further spread. That was a good thing. It also meant that I could concentrate cutting operations on the other fields. >> Blighted crops in the mini-fields don't infect others, and so can be left to die. << Edited

The downside is that 36 mini crop fields are something of pain to maintain. At the end of the season I have to select each of the 36 in turn and tick the "Don't Sow" box. Then at the beginning of the next season I have to do this again and un-tick the "Don't Sow" box.

SUGGESTION: It would be really nice if I could select them all first and then tick the box just once for all of them. This isn't needed for ordinary crop fields, of course.

The other downside, is that the whole crop takes up almost 4 times the ground area that a normal crop field would. I don't see this as necessarily a big problem.

There is another unexpected upside: for some reason, mushrooms grow profusely in the gaps between the growing barley!

Several seasons later, I have concluded that I will go with an array of mini-fields as described above next Spring for all crops affected by blight.

The benefits seem to outweigh the disadvantages (for me, anyway).

Main benefit: I really can ignore crop blight. It will strike a small proportion of the isolated mini-fields, and I don't have to do a thing. The blight won't spread and the blighted plants will just die.

If I go with normal larger crop fields then I have a major damage limitation exercise that involves all the things mentioned earlier in this thread. I lost more crops than I would in the mini-field solution, so I can plant somewhat fewer plants in the mini-fields.

Main disadvantage of mini-fields: the effort needed to click each one in turn in order to turn off / turn on the "Don't sow".

{I discovered that if a plant is growing in the mini-field, you have to click it and then click it again (not double-click) in order to make the mini-field itself selectable}.

IMO this is less hassle, twice a year, than the effort involved in fighting blight spread.

The mini-field option would win hands-down (for me) if galadon3's suggestion of "Global seed / don't seed commands" were taken up by the developer. If you want to support galadon3's suggestion then you could head to his link and give it a boost:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1029780/discussions/2/3418810706129140419/

And finally: does anyone know for sure which crops are NOT affected by blight?

[AirToob]

Thanks!

[Elhazzared]

There are 2 better ways to deal with it. One is to make all your food be made out of redcurrents and as such plant 3x3 fields, the redcurents are planted in a + formation leaving only the corners and then you play any other crops in the corners. Since redcurrents can't be affected by blight, blight will not jump over to the other corners. It is still micro intensive with the way you end up with tons of miny fields.

The other way is the better way. Go into the game files, look for the file used for the crops and look for the field that says can have bligh and change it from yes to no. Now none of your crops can be blighted. This takes a bit of time to set up at first but it saves you on the micro in game.

[AirToob]

Although it may not be the best way, I am happy with my current strategy, which is lines of 5 crop tiles, separated by one blank tile (actually a wooden floor) from other lines of 5 crop tiles. Blight misses several of these altogether, and I can easily limit the damage in affected lines.

The basic advantage of lines is that a blighted crop can only spread in (at most) two directions, whereas it can spread in up to 4 other directions in other layouts.

As I said, this may not be the best but it's a good balance between effort and damage limitation for me, and the amount of crops I lose is not worth worrying about.