Farmplot shortage of nutrients..

[Skywalker]

Over time, no crops came off the farmplots.
The fort existed for 7 years and had a farmplot on loamy sand cavern floor.
How to fertilize is not clear to me yet and just ordering this is enough I suspect.
I also did not apply irrigation to the farmplot either and that will probably always be necessary to achieve a muddy surface for crops.
I also failed to create a space in a light aquifer environment: the leaked water from the walls would then flood the water level 1 in the space.
This should then be sufficient to place a farm plot.
A stable food supply with plumphelmets is needed.

[JKjoker]

Originally posted by John Skywalker:

Even if you let the planters do their work alone, they can still go do something else when they get hungry and thirsty ?
The talented planter with me was so starving that he went hunting outside the fort for small pests.
Unfortunately, the planter died of starvation, but the exact cause of his death is not known to me because his injuries did not look like starvation.
Unfortunately I did not investigate further because his injuries seemed life-threatening to me.

Yes, they will do that alone. And also pick up new clothes if they pass close to them them and as the fortress gets older they will also party and pray to someone and go to guild meetings and start doing a looooooooot of "not working". Also if you are not efficient with stockpiles, they can spend a lot of time going to search for seeds or dropping produce.

Maybe he could not access your food supply or you denied it somehow (like setting all plants to "not for cooking") although i think they still eat the mushrooms raw even if you tag them. I suppose there might be some mix of personalities that will not eat without cooking first or a dinning room with tables

Letting them roam the surface in anything but very safe areas usually ends in dead dwarves. This is why you bring one pair of cats and one pair of dogs, they kill vermin, they expose goblins, they add some fighting strength, they give dwarves happy thoughts and they are the emergency food supply. The catexplotion needs to get culled regularly after all.