Rotate Orchards?

[Oddwaffle]

Do you need to let orchards rest every couple of years? My orchards seem to only reach 85% yield for the new ones (5 years or less) and 40% for the old one (30+ years). Will cutting down the trees and replanting it will do anything or can I just destroy it and rebuilt it?

[VeNoM]

I might be wrong but I believe the soil sutability for each type of crop/tree deminishes over the years. Alternate what your planting in the fields every couple of years when you notice the yields dropping.

[Palad1n]

I managed to trade for apple seeds and peppers, my first orchards and farming! (Playing hard mode, so you do not get any seeds, livestock, nothing, your reliant on getting your trader setup and wait).

I actually turned off the 2 farmers jobs in late Autum once they did a harvest, which frees them up to do other things for the winter. As soon as spring starts, I do my best to assign the 2 jobs again. Yeah, a little micro-managing at times, but it makes a difference at times, especially after starting a recovery after a nasty disaster.

[VeNoM]

Farmers become labourers during the winter months by default, and I believed an orchard only takes up one civ regardless of size.

[Oddwaffle]

So I can just leave the orchard as it is? I heard that if you farm a place for too long, it will reduce the yield. I use the orchards to suplement the food variety instead of using it as a major food source.

I sort of need a balanced food source. I'm producing about 23K food a year and consume about 24K a year with a population of 150/22/25. Fruit is my lowest food income with only about 600~900 per year per orchard; compare to venison/mutton/beef with 2K~3K a year. They take too much space to produce a marginal income.

[Terozo]

Crop rotation was going to be a thing but was removed from the game pre-release (http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2013-05-07-game-design-flux-or-how-i-learned-virtual-crop-rotation-isnt-fun/)

As for Orchards, trees grow old and die at different rates so you may not always have 100% yield.

You *could* cut all the trees and and replant the orchard but you'll need to wait the 2-4 years for them to fully mature again as opposed to just have reduced yields.

You mentioned your old one is around 40%, I don't think any of mine are near that old but it could indeed be a case that you need to replant them every so often.

[VeNoM]

Yeah I can't be a**sed doing the math but I'd guess once your yield drops below 50% a year sacrificing it for a year or two to replant and get it back up to 100% makes sense.

[Oddwaffle]

Ah, thanks for the links. Now I have another problem. None of my orchards seem to be at maximum yeild even the newly planted ones. The latest planted orchards are at 85% yield for a 15x15 square for roughly 900~ food per harvest. Older orchards seem to bounce between 600~900.

The rate of 900 fruits per year is a little too low compare to pretty much everything else except fishing. However, I want to have a fairly decent number of food variety so I have to maintain these inefficient industries. My major food source are venison, mutton, beef and gatherer's food. I trade the meats and coats for fruits and other food such as chicken. However, this is not sustainable as I make more meats than the population consume and every trades I make increases my food stock. I have 85K food and about to increase to 100K food but still have a imbalance in food source.

Now my options are to split the 15x15 into 3 5x15 plot with 1 worker on each of them - I heard this will improve the yield or build more orchards.