Is farming worthwhile for a solo player?

[Bubba Fett]

After trying to tame a couple of dinos and spending the entire time they're unconcious running around harvesting berries to get narco berries I ended up with a bunch of narcoberry seeds.

It seemed like planting them would give me an easy non spoiling source of berries.
First thing I notice is that the garden plot is tiny. Second thing is that it would only hold one seed so it looks like one plant per plot. Third thing is that the plants take a long time to grow.

So now it looks like I'll need to spend weeks of gametime to get a full size plant, but what then? Will it keep producing berries, or will I harvest them once and the plant will vanish and I have to start over?

Is it worthwhile for a solo player to bother with a small garden, or are you just wasting your time unless you go big?

[l00tenant_ne0x]

this is what i usually do > farm atleast 200 narcoberries + 200 mejoberries (purple) > down a trike (super easy tame)

after taming the trike > farm berries with trike > get other dinos easy.

garden plot is useless > i only use them for the rockaroot etc.

[kooto]

Waste of time.

[Fabiolus]

wait for large garden it produces more, its good for the rare seeds like longrass citronel etc...

you need to for recipes, not sure why the above say its a waste of time.

[Kotli]

Gardening is only useful for non berry plants for anything else it a waste of time since any plant eater apart from Pig Elephant thing collects berries like crazy.

[Ferro]

Once you have decent harvesting dino, (trike/stego/mammoth/bronto) berry plants are unnecessary, but vegetables can be used as an alternative to meat and to make dishes with various effects.
I'm not sure about the exact timeframe, I'm sure it's on the wiki by now, but it takes about a full day from seeding until it starts producing. There's a max no. each can hold, I think 150 for large plot, after that it wont produce anymore until you remove them. As long as you keep the plot watered and fertilized, it lasts forever as a fruitling and keeps producing.
I only have 4 plots, one of each veg, and it's plenty I think. Once you have a fridge you can also store and stockpile them.

[Defektiv]

Agree farming for narcs is kind of pointless, or any berries really. It would be a viable option for new players who haven't yet established a place to keep a dino safe yet, especially considering you can get compost bins, farms and irrigation pieces in beacons. But it takes so damn long to make fertilizer plus get the farm up to fruitling that you're just better off doing what ne0Fx said. A Trike can double as a pretty good nub mount as well, considering it can neutralize a lot of attackers if it can keep them in front of it.

[bobbybell36]

Farming is amazing, No need for a berry gathering dino anymore. No need to waste time using one when you could be doing other things. I have 7 small crop plots planted. Everytime I log in I have 2000-2100 narco berries. This allows me to go do other things instead of worrying about gathering berries.

[bobbybell36]

It also takes no time at all, a few hours and everything is growing. Fertilizer is fairly quick also. Remember 50 thatch per 3 piles of poop.

[Fabiolus]

Originally posted by bobbybell36:

It also takes no time at all, a few hours and everything is growing. Fertilizer is fairly quick also. Remember 50 thatch per 3 piles of poop.

big dino poop

[Jynn]

I"d recommend a berry gathering dino, especially trike or stego, for berries

And use the garden plot for things you cannot get via dino harvesting

that's just what i do at least XD

[Deadman]

Now that they've upped the stacks on crops, totally worth it. You can get 150 narco berries per small crop plot. Also the size of the plot has no effect on the yield, only what you can/can't plant in it.

All you need to do is fertilize them, and the bags last for quite a while anyways so not an issue. You get this setup and you just don't need to go out collecting berries ever again.

[Jolly]

Farm plots all have the same yield, the medium and large can just hold more exotic seed types.

You only need 1 seed for a farm plot. Once you seed it, it's seeded forever - then you just need to keep it fertilized and with water (does not need to be irrigated - rain will keep it "watered" once it's watered to begin with).

Farm plots have a few slots and you can put as much fertilizer in as you like - I put in lots so the plots can sit for days if we get distracted or are out and about for days doing a lengthy taming. It's a bummer if you plots run out of fertilizer.

They sped up growing and increased yield with patches over time. It takes several game days to get plants producing but not weeks, and as long as you keep the fertilizer rolling, they will produce yield indefinitely.

What I do is plop down a plot, "water" it with 1 water skin (remote use it inside the plot), seed, fertilize, wait, reap neverending results (as long as you keep the plot fertilized it will continue to refill with yield - if you fail to keep it fertilized it will "ungrow" and revert to unyielding planting stages). Rain will fill the plot with water and keep it full over time.

We (2 of us with a sometimes 3rd with me hosting) have 10 small plots for narco berries that have yielded up to 650 berries at full yield (after the recent patch boosted yield - considerably) - that's a lot of xp via narcotic (we're not capped since we restarted) and a couple of medium plots for the stuff needed to make oxygen buff food. 4-5 trike/cargo transports poop power our 3 compost boxes to keep it all (over) fertilized.

I run a water line to our base so we can have a tap inside for ease of water and skin filling (mostly for the cooking pot stuff) but otherwise, there's no need to irrigate and dealing with pipes/wire is insanity inducing hassle. I dread wiring up our fridges in the near future (did it in our last run and it was hours of frustration).

[bobbybell36]

Originally posted by Deadman☣:

Now that they've upped the stacks on crops, totally worth it. You can get 150 narco berries per small crop plot. Also the size of the plot has no effect on the yield, only what you can/can't plant in it.

All you need to do is fertilize them, and the bags last for quite a while anyways so not an issue.

My small crop plots produce 300 berries each....

[Bubba Fett]

Thanks for all the replies.
I haven't actually been making fertalizer, just putting dino poo in the garden plots inventory slots and it shows as having 20k in fertalizer. Do I just add the thatch there as well, or is there a composter that I need to make as well?
Perhaps this is why they seem to take so long to progress beyond seedlings.

[bobbybell36]

you need a compost bin, 3 piles of poop and 50 thatch will make around 50k-55k fertilizer