Self-sustaining farming

[directorguy7]

Ran out of carrots for donkey. Would like to buy more seeds, but curious if I get some fertilizer going is it possible to get a infinite chain going?

1 Fertilize the ground
2 plant seeds
3 crop produces the same amount of seeds I used initially as well as crop waste to use for fertilizer.
4 repeat.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Yep - I'd suggest getting the Farmer perk and use AT LEAST Peat (copper quality). You should break even, with that, but if you'd like a small net gain, use a silver-quality fertilizer (Q-1). I also wouldn't bother with gold-quality fertilizer (Q-2) on basic crops (carrots, wheat, etc.) - a bit wasteful.

[Dosbilliam, Boring but Practical]

To echo the above, using just gold-star fertilizer and booster ended up with me eventually selling some 400 gold-star Grape seeds to the Merchant because they were doing nothing but taking up space. :P

[xenxander]

Also to note, that zombie farms tend to net a gain in seeds over time.
I feel this has to do with their skull efficiency. With 14 white skulls (yes you can get this) they always make seed surplus, once I upgrade the farm to golden fertilizer quality.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by EVIL Shenanigans:

Yep - I'd suggest getting the Farmer perk and use AT LEAST Peat (copper quality). You should break even

Is this correct? The Farmer perk is not described as affecting the quantity of seeds, only the fertilizer is. (https://graveyardkeeper.gamepedia.com/Perks)

I'm using Peat, but not quite breaking even, although I need relatively few seeds from the farmer to keep going.

Just curious if anyone is able to actually break even with just the basic Peat fertilizer. I assumed it'd take alchemy fertilizers to do that.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

TLDR; I confused basic and complex crop seed yields ...with a basic crop using the Peat fertilizer, you should receive 3-4 seeds per harvest (avg 3.5 seeds), thus not technically self-sustaining.

Sooo ...Fertilizer is complicated, and adding in a variable like the Farmer perk doesn't help - in fact, I'm still not 100% convinced the Farmer perk does anything, but I also don't wanna sink anymore time into finding out. So, long story short, the wiki doesn't do Fertilizer justice.

Primarily, the yields of basic crops (carrots, wheat, etc.) and complex crops (grapes, pumpkins, etc.) are quite different, both on the produce end and the seed end.

Basic produce: 5 + 1to3 + 2x ;
Basic seeds: 1 + 1to2 + x ;
Complex produce: 2 + 1to3 + x + y ;
Complex seeds: 1 + 1to3 + x + y ;

Basic *x = 0/1/2/3 (tier of fertilizer used)
Complex *x = 0/1/1/2
Complex *y = 0/0/1/2 (upgraded)

Ex#1; you plant Carrots on Peat fertilizer.
> Produce; 5 + 1to3 + 2*1 = 8-10 Carrots.
> Seeds; 1 + 1to2 + 1 = 3-4 seeds.

Ex#2; you plant silver-quality Grapes on Q-1 (silver) fertilizer.
> Produce; 2 + 1to3 + 1 + 1upg = 4-6 silver-quality Grapes, 1 gold-quality Grape.
> Seeds; 1 + 1to3 + 1 + 1upg = 3-5 silver-quality seeds, 1 gold-quality seed.

Protips;
1) Always use Peat. Also, get the Farmer perk if you want - might help.
2) In addition, use Q-1 (silver) on your Basic crops if you can manage it.
3) Try to always use Q-1 on your Complex crops, if not Q-2 (gold).

[BanDHMO]

Thanks, EVIL Sh. Very detailed and confirms what I've holistically observed. Peat makes carrot farming for the donkey cheap, at an important time of the game where coin is scarce. You basically turn 1 seed into about 10 carrots. Without it, the seeds start adding up, and the trips to the farmer start to get tiresome.

Later on, the lowest tier alchemy fertilizer is a license to infinite gold-level crops, because you always maintain the quality level of the seeds and you always produce at least as many seeds as you put in. Meaning you start with 4 copper-level seeds, and eventually you will breed gold-level seeds, which constantly give gold-level crops.

[BanDHMO]

What about self-sustaining *zombie* farms? I made enough golden fertilizer and seeds to set up 5 pumpkin farms, and when they were done growing, I didn't have enough seeds to restart all 5. Is anyone able to grow enough seeds by zombies to plant the next harvest without supplementing? If so, any idea what that depends on? Wiki says you should get back 24 seeds just as you put in.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

All I can say is, in my experience, a tier 3 ZF with a 40% efficiency zombie is self-sustaining, maybe with a bit of a net gain in-fact. The zombie's efficiency seems to be the greatest determining factor in regards to seed yield, but afaik, no one has significantly tested this. There have been reports of a 30% falling short, so I can only imagine the waste a 10% is capable of.

You might also try patrolling near each zombie's work area, as they've been known to drop seeds on-site instead of properly depositing them back in the communal Trunk.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by EVIL Shenanigans:

All I can say is, in my experience, a tier 3 ZF with a 40% efficiency zombie is self-sustaining, maybe with a bit of a net gain in-fact. The zombie's efficiency seems to be the greatest determining factor in regards to seed yield, but afaik, no one has significantly tested this. There have been reports of a 30% falling short, so I can only imagine the waste a 10% is capable of.

That must be it. The wiki didn't mention zombie quality, but it must influence yield of seeds. I suck to zombie making at this stage, so all of mine are 10-18% ones, which must be why I'm seeing what I'm seeing and you aren't.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

I made enough golden fertilizer and seeds to set up 5 pumpkin farms...

...though it shouldn't matter, this might also be part of the problem - multiple farms vying for a single seed type. While pumpkins are the most efficient, I'd limit your production to one pumpkin, one onion, one lentil, and use the other two for anything else; carrots and wheat maybe?

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

I suck to zombie making at this stage, so all of mine are 10-18% ones...

If you have a level 2-ish church, you should start receiving corpses with 4-5x white skulls. If so, get your alchemy and embalming up to speed, and you'll be able to churn out 12x white skull zombies (30% efficiency) fairly easily. Don't worry about reaching 40% until late-game.