What is an ideal planting order?

[Funny Purple Suit Man]

Which crops should I plant every season if I want to maximize the yearly food output of a single field?

[AfLIcTeD]

I would say oats and rye would be your best bet. This gives you porridge and berries/apples. Turn the rye into flour to make white bread. Although this would be later game once you unlock those recipes. You will need these anyway to make animal feed if you want those. Which you will for eggs and milk.

Early game I would say cabbage, cabbage and rye. Or onions, cabbage and rye. This will give you potage and flatbreads or flatbreads with onions..

[Trim]

It depends on how much land you want to devote to fields, how many villagers you want to work in the farm shed, and how much micromanagement you want to do.

In my village of 23 adults and 16 children, I have just one person in the farm shed all year round, and just let them get on with it. This only works because most field squares only grow 1 crop, meaning that provided they get harvested and sown in the correct season, the farm worker has two or three seasons to fertilise and plough, whenever the work can be fitted in (which often means Winter). I do have some double cabbage squares that have to be harvested, fertilised, ploughed and sown in Summer, and some oat and rye squares, which require harvesting, fertilising, ploughing and planting in Spring and Autumn. If you get too carried away with maximising food output per farm square, then you'll most likely find you need two or three farm workers in Spring, but there's nothing for anyone to do in Winter.

My farm fields, together with the hunting lodge, still produce more food than my kitchen can cook, and my kitchen cooks more food than my villagers can eat.

If I really wanted to plan it, I would start with the kitchen and work out what recipes I really wanted to cook, then see what ingredients I would need, and set fields, farm animals and the hunting lodge accordingly. But I prefer not to get bogged down in numbers and spreadsheets, and instead just make a note of things I run out of over the course of a year, which means that next year I'll plant a few more squares of onions, and a few less squares of beetroot and carrot.

[CaBux]

I start with cabbage (spring & summer), beets (spring), flax (spring), oats (spring) and rye (autumn) - cabbage and beets for potage and soup (the extra cabbages go in compost bins for fertiliser. I have a 10 x 10 field and do 2 rows each of the veg, 4 rows of flax, 2 of oats and 2 rows of rye in autumn in the same rows as the oats. This lasts me for 1 - 5 years. I have 2 farmers working these fields from spring - autumn and one in winter. When the're not working in the farm shed, they work in the barn. And if I need extra workers, I move my animal breeders into the fields for one or two days to give a boost (pig sty worker first; sheep fold worker last)

I do have a 2 x 8 orchard for each type of fruit tree and a 6 x 6 hop field for beer and potions - 1 farmer manages this for one day in summer and autumn, then moves to the field farm shed in the early game; later in the game they work in the barn or fold for the rest of the time

As my village grows, I add another 10 x 10 for autumn wheat (6 rows) and winter carrots (2 rows), with another 2 rows of oats and rye in combination. I may jiggle the spread a bit to include onions and add another 10 x 10 field that alternates flax, cabbage and rye (10 rows of each). That tends to sort me out

I feed my NPCs potage, soup and roast meat only; they drink water, berry wine and apple juice. Everything else my NPCs make (food & drink-wise), my vendors sell ... or I eat for boosts.They seem happy with this as their mood scores are generally between 75% - 90%, unless they just have a baby, then it boosts up to 100%

[CaBux]

Originally posted by CaBux:

I start with cabbage (spring & summer), beets (spring), flax (spring), oats (spring) and rye (autumn) - cabbage and beets for potage and soup (the extra cabbages go in compost bins for fertiliser. I have a 10 x 10 field and do 2 rows each of the veg, 4 rows of flax, 2 of oats and 2 rows of rye in autumn in the same rows as the oats. This lasts me for 1 - 5 years. I have 2 farmers working these fields from spring - autumn and one in winter. When the're not working in the farm shed, they work in the barn. And if I need extra workers, I move my animal breeders into the fields for one or two days to give a boost (pig sty worker first; sheep fold worker last)

I do have a 2 x 8 orchard for each type of fruit tree and a 6 x 6 hop field for beer and potions - 1 farmer manages this for one day in summer and autumn, then moves to the field farm shed in the early game; later in the game they work in the barn or fold for the rest of the time

I grow poppies in garden plots, for potions and decoration - usually near my farm buildings so farmers look after them if I forget

As my village grows, I add another 10 x 10 for autumn wheat (6 rows) and winter carrots (2 rows), with another 2 rows of oats and rye in combination. I may jiggle the spread a bit to include onions and add another 10 x 10 field that alternates flax, cabbage and rye (10 rows of each). That tends to sort me out, although I don't always bother with either carrots or onions as they only thing I would ever use them for is veg soup

I feed my NPCs potage, soup and roast meat only; they drink water, berry wine and apple juice. Everything else my NPCs make (food & drink-wise), my vendors sell ... or I eat for boosts.They seem happy with this as their mood scores are generally between 75% - 90%, unless they just have a baby, then it boosts up to 100%

[Maehlice]

My knee-jerk response is to start by telling you to NOT think in terms of minimum or maximum. This game breaks down as soon as you start to min-max things, because while it's generally well-balanced, there are significant outliers and following them leads to a very one-sided and boring village composition.

Originally posted by Funny Purple Suit Man:

Which crops should I plant every season if I want to maximize the yearly food output of a single field?

But to answer the question, Oat & Rye and make Flatbread.

EDIT: And once you've unlocked the Henhouse, Oat Roll.

[Foxglovez]

Just plant a reasonable number of all the crops and work out from there as you decide what your villagers will need. You will need flax and extra seeds bring in good money and in fall plant cabbages so efficient use of a field.
Oats in spring, same field rye in fall. Only needs one field and you need both for animal food.
Onions in spring followed by cabbages in fall in one field.
One crop for winter carrots.
One wheat field winter planting to spread out your field workers time. You can wait a bit to plant wheat as early game you can get your flour from the oats and rye and you can't make stuff with flour for a bit of time anyway.

Plant your orchards early on. Trees take several years to grow. Look at what the pies and tarts they make and decide which things you want to make food wise or just plant what you loot from barrels and go with the flow. Plant some hops, not very many as you can't make a tavern to make beers for about 8-10 yrs playing vanilla.

If you screw it all up and don't like what you did just replant stuff you like better later. Game doesn't care. Don't overthink the min/max potential. It's the fastest way to ruin the game that I know of. ymmv

[>< V ><]

An interesting min-max question, but this involves other things besides the farm plot as harvesting the field does not always yield "food" and requires a kitchen, maybe even a well to turn the product into "food". I keep typing "food" because that is the criteria you established, to maximize food output.

But I can't stress enough...

Originally posted by Maehlice:

My knee-jerk response is to start by telling you to NOT think in terms of minimum or maximum. This game breaks down as soon as you start to min-max things, because while it's generally well-balanced, there are significant outliers and following them leads to a very one-sided and boring village composition.

...heed this advice.

I think this is a fun game, but it does totally and completely break down if you want to min-max and play like say, Satisfactory. If you want to min-max, then just make flatbread and never worry about food again.

[OGPG]

My Farm

Main Field (4 -5x5 plots)
Flax - Spring to Summer
Cabbage - Summer to Autumn
Rye - Autumn to Spring

Secondary Field (2 - 11x5 plots)
Wheat/Oats - Spring to Autumn.
Rye - Autumn to Spring

[wildride]

I typically do everything. 3 10x5 fields Oat, Flax, Wheat, 3 5x5 for Beets, Carrot, Onion and 2 fields of poppies in between those (with shed in middle).

These are all planted in spring, in the winter Flax and Onion get changed to Cabbage. In Autumn Everything is Rye.

This produces a ton of Rye that cleans out the vendors just selling grains while leaving 1000 grains for use over the year.

While doing this manually first year you likely wont be maxing them out, but with 2-4 farmhands you will have it covered. You dont need to completely sow a field but Id recommend not doing a mix of seasonal stuff, I initially only had one field with variety but found when I wanted it switch to wheat only the NPCs didnt replant the field for a few seasons waiting for all the stuff to be harvested before planting the crop in the rotation.

Of this I generally leave everything in food store, when its full I shove cabbages into compost, 150 cabbages = 600 Rot = 60 Fertiliser. Coupled with manure from 2 Pigs you should have enough to maintain this. If you intend on a full animal farm too (1 of each animal shelter with full capacity) you will need 62 Animal feed/day. If you go by the 3 day format means you will want to keep 800 Oats and 1000 Rye for replanting and animal feed. Just have your barn workers process the Pig manure (1/2 the pigs output) and animal feed required you can make a copy of this to edit yourself just change the numbers in "count" column https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ubkgvo4YY3oSjeAnJl2HTKfsbrdrEEEvtxIAbPP9c7o/edit?gid=560882614#gid=560882614

You can then workout Daub (amount of clay being excavated/10) and the rest just have them work on Rye, you process the Flax/Oat/Wheat/Poppies and even Rye at the end of winter.

[Foxglovez]

Wheat is the one thing you can't double up like the other grains as it takes too many seasons to grow. You can only have them in a field, and only plant at one season. Oats n rye can now be doubled up. So can flax which as you noted gives a ♥♥♥♥ ton of cabbages. You don't even need a pig if you like messing with compost bins for a really long time. Depends on playstyle and season length though. The seasonal options the devs added is a real blessing.

[niemandel]

Flax in spring, cabbage in summer and Rye in autumn. This way you get 3 harvests from the same plot.
Flax is inedible but you can sell it and buy edible grains with the proceeds. Or spin it into clothes and buy even more grains with the proceeds.

[AfLIcTeD]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

Wheat is the one thing you can't double up like the other grains as it takes too many seasons to grow. You can only have them in a field, and only plant at one season. Oats n rye can now be doubled up. So can flax which as you noted gives a ♥♥♥♥ ton of cabbages. You don't even need a pig if you like messing with compost bins for a really long time. Depends on playstyle and season length though. The seasonal options the devs added is a real blessing.

Well you can double up with wheat. Plant in spring and harvest in autumn. There is no point though considering you can use rye for flour and there is no other use for wheat.

[TheRealMuehle]

I'm planting rye on every field in autumn.
Everything else (including wheat) is planted in spring.
With the exception of cabbage. This is planted in summer on flax- and onion-fields.

That's more than enough rye for flour, rye-beer, rye-bread and animal feed.
So you can keep oat for animal feed and wheat for wheat-beer and -bread.

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

Well you can double up with wheat. Plant in spring and harvest in autumn. There is no point though considering you can use rye for flour and there is no other use for wheat.

This works only once, starting in spring.
Autumn-wheat takes until summer to grow, so you'll miss the next spring-sowing.

[AfLIcTeD]

Originally posted by TheRealMuehle:

I'm planting rye on every field in autumn.
Everything else (including wheat) is planted in spring.
With the exception of cabbage. This is planted in summer on flax- and onion-fields.

That's more than enough rye for flour, rye-beer, rye-bread and animal feed.
So you can keep oat for animal feed and wheat for wheat-beer and -bread.

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

Well you can double up with wheat. Plant in spring and harvest in autumn. There is no point though considering you can use rye for flour and there is no other use for wheat.

This works only once, starting in spring.
Autumn-wheat takes until summer to grow, so you'll miss the next spring-sowing.

That's why you plant rye in autumn. With the new seasonal planting your farmers shouldn't automatically plant wheat in autumn in those fields.

Rye for days.