Most effective crop rotation with plough+fallow/animal field

[cae]

I have seen the old guides to most effective crop rotation, but I am not sure they take into account that I have three ploughs and animals to graze on each fallow field. How do you rotate your crops when you have both ploughs and fallow fields with animals? I see that the rotation I have now still has a lot of nutrients left when I get to the fallow time.

[susannah365]

Hello,

I have 9 fields per farm with 3 ploughs. The size of each field is around 40x40, can be smaller or bigger depending on how many villagers i have to help out as laborers during harvesting season. The field division is for 3 years looks like this (it repeats ever 3 years):
Field 1: Wheat (1st year) | Flax (2nd year) | Fallow (3rd year)
Field 2: Sunflower | Buckwheat | Fallow
Field 3: Hemp | Potatoe | Fallow
Field 4: Flax | Fallow | Wheat
Field 5: Buckwheat | Fallow | Sunflower
Field 6: Potatoe | Fallow| Hemp
Field 7: Fallow | Wheat| Flax
Field 8: Fallow | Sunflower | Buckwheat
Field 9: Fallow | Hemp | Potatoe

That way i always produce food and have materials for weavers every year. It also gives me space for 3 pastures (2 cows and 1 sheep).

I also have a separate farm for barley for pigs and chickens. I rotate it with extra wheat and flax/hemp. It has 6 fields and 3 ploughs.
Field 1: Wheat (1st year) | Flax (2nd year) | Fallow (3rd year)
Field 2: Barley | Barley | Fallow
Field 3: Hemp | Fallow | Wheat
Field 4: Barley | Fallow | Barley
Field 5: Fallow | Wheat| Flax
Field 6: Fallow | Barley | Barley

Each year i have 2 pastures to use for sheep/cows.

One more thing that can be useful to know is that i dont recommnt choosing the option to "Proritize gathering". With big fields its important to harvest everything in time before first snow so the harvest doesnt disappear.
With "Proritize gathering" options the villagers will bring everything in as soon as possible, wasting the harvest time.
Without the "Proritize gathering"option they harvest grains but leave them on the fields in bags.
Bags can stay on the fields to be gathered later, even after the first snow and during winter months. The harvest cant, as mentioned before, it will disappear somewhere around 1 december.

Hope that helps :)

[Taffer]

Originally posted by susannah365:

Bags can stay on the fields to be gathered later, even after the first snow and during winter months.

Yes, but even the harvest in the bags will start to deteriorate come November. So in order to not waste what has already been harvested, if you are behind and winter is coming you can chose to select "Prioritize Gathering" to bring in the already harvested crop first.

[cae]

Originally posted by susannah365:

Hope that helps :)

Thank you for the thorough reply! I wonder, though, aren't you left with a lot of nutrients when your fields go fallow? Why only two crops grown before fallow?

[Banisha]

I don't do rotation, which means that I visit my fields every year in December and, depending on what is still stored, see what is needed. I do not employ any managers and have 8 fields of 50x25x50x25 per farm so that I limit surpluses, the soil remains optimal and the number of seasonal workers is always sufficient to get the harvest in before the winter. I rarely need the oxen to plow.
At the moment, the cultivation and processing of land yields is far below standard, because in my opinion there is no clear picture of how long the harvest can be kept, keeping animals other than cows is a nightmare and I have no insight into how much my population hoards.

The piece of land must have this nutritional value for the following crops:
Wheat, 50%-60%-30%
Sunflower, 100%-60%-30%
Potatoes, 40%-30%-0%
Hemp, 10%-0%-69%
Buckwheat, 0%-20%-60%
Barley, 50%-50%-0%
Flax, 5%-0%-60%

[NickTwist]

I follow the field planting rotation BUT sometimes it changes on its own. Any idea why this happens?

[Bjørn]

Originally posted by NickTwist:

I follow the field planting rotation BUT sometimes it changes on its own. Any idea why this happens?

It shouldn't do that, but I've seen others mentioning this as well.

It happens if there isn't a manager in the farm, though, where you'll get a warning icon on the farm anyway. If the manager is absent during the time where the rotation should take place, that rotation is 'lost', and you have to fix it manually when a manager gets rehired.

Also, the rotations take place at different times of year for fields; fields with crops will rotate as soon as they're harvested, fallow fields will rotate 'right away', but fallow fields with animals grazing on them will not rotate until all the animals have been taken off the fields in November.

So if you notice they're not rotated properly during autumn / harvest season, wait until December or something, and all fields should be in 'synch'.