Growing Trees?

[AntiUnicorn]

Anyone know if there's any way to actually grow trees? I am starting to look at other areas that aren't your perfect, temperate, start. That said, having an aquifer and fewer trees is killer, as I quickly run out of trees for building until I can punch through. If I could grow a few back as I go, that'd be pretty workable, but the game is so huge, I have no idea if its not possible or if I just don't know how to. Any ideas?

[Basterbane]

Think you can turn logs into blocks at 1:4 ratio now. Other than that, you'll just have to let the time pass. Saplings will grow on their own.

[Robert]

Dwarves cannot plant trees, yet. (you can plant outdoor shrubs from their seeds, but not trees - making fruit tree seeds useless trash by the way)

Trees will grow themselves from saplings, depending on the vegetation settings for your biome(s).

If wood is scarce on your map, focus on only crafting stuff which you can't make from stone, like beds.

If you intend to embark in a difficult area, it makes sense to prepare carefully. For example, bring enough wooden blocks for the walls to pierce through the aquifer.

[Testikles]

You cannot plant them, they grow by themselves. If you want to embark to a place with little to no trees:

- Make a custom embark and give your Dwarfs some extra wood to get through the beginning
- Dig deep as soon as possible and try to reach a cavern since there are trees which you can use
- (Alternatively: There are mods which give a few more options for stone furniture - stone beds for example. This can also be a way to get around wood limitations. Whether it is an interesting scenario, an expansion of your possibilities, or plain cheating is for you to decide).

[AlP]

Originally posted by AntiUnicorn:

Anyone know if there's any way to actually grow trees?

There is a tree you can grow.

You go to the bottom of the map, and find magma. Then you build a pump stack to carry the magma up. Build the stack even higher, all the way up into the sky.

There, you have a magma tree.

[Vettig Annikske]

Yeah, you need to prepare yourself carefully if you want to embark on a site with no trees and an heavy aquifer.
Try surviving until you can request wood from the mountainhomes trading caravan, good luck

[Celgaming]

Breach the caverns. Mushroom trees will grow on underground soil you've dug out.

[Geeves]

If the surface has no trees, follow these steps:

1. Dig stairs down to the cavern layer immediately. The sooner you do this the better finding any cavern layer turns all soil/clay/sand tiles which are underground into cavern tiles (slowly). This allows cavern flora (fungal trees is what we want) to grow natively on those tiles.

2. once cavern is found, channel an area underground at least 3 layers deep. Fungal trees will not grow to adulthood (and be choppable) if the roof is too low.

3. If you can channel 3 layers deep and still have soil/sand/clay surface, great. You are done. Fungal trees will start spawning and growing in the deep pit.

3a. If not, you might be able to get away with flooding your at least 3 layer deep pit with water to create a mud surface. Just make sure you have a way to send in water to fill all tiles, and drain after. At least this worked with the non-steam version. Don't know if they changed this behavior in the steam version. It absolutely does work on sand/clay/soil ground though.

*Reminder* Fungal trees will ONLY grow if the pit is deep enough. Otherwise they will appear but never mature.