Plant Never in Season?

[Mynoris]

I have lentils growing wild in the area I'm in, but they never seem to be in season for harvesting. I see them grow and die, but they never register as being harvestable by my dwarves. Am I missing something? Is this a bug? Does anyone else have this problem, or the same problem with another wild plant? I know that lentils are used in making several dishes in real life, so they should be harvestable as well.

[Fel]

Wild plants that die usually mean they get trampled.
There is no season for it, they grow in all seasons in any dry, non-mountain and non-freezing biomes (for lentils at least those are the only restriction).

To harvest them, you need to leave the area alone for a while (including animals not going there preferably, especially yours) then either paint the area for harvest or use the "gather fruits" zone (it can also be used to gather plants).

[Mynoris]

Originally posted by Fel:

Wild plants that die usually mean they get trampled.
There is no season for it, they grow in all seasons in any dry, non-mountain and non-freezing biomes (for lentils at least those are the only restriction).

To harvest them, you need to leave the area alone for a while (including animals not going there preferably, especially yours) then either paint the area for harvest or use the "gather fruits" zone (it can also be used to gather plants).

I set several lentil plants to be harvested in the gather zone, but my dwarves never seemed to go over to them to collect them. What should be appearing in my tooltip information when they are ready?

[Fel]

Nothing specific appears.
When using the gather command (rather than the zone) plants that get tagged get highlighted (and it blinks when a dwarf picks up the task.
Since you are using a zone, the tasks get created whenever something is ready to be gathered but it is also easier to miss if/when it happens.

Just to be sure, double-check that plant gathering is not set to "everybody does this", because unskilled dwarves are more likely to not get anything from plant gathering.
A dwarf with a high level in the skill will not only always get something but also get a lot more in quantity and does it much faster.
It only applies to plants though, for fruits it succeeds regardless of the skill level.

[AlP]

There are no seasons for above-ground plants, they always grow. Is your game modded?

[Mynoris]

Originally posted by Fel:

Nothing specific appears.
When using the gather command (rather than the zone) plants that get tagged get highlighted (and it blinks when a dwarf picks up the task.
Since you are using a zone, the tasks get created whenever something is ready to be gathered but it is also easier to miss if/when it happens.

Just to be sure, double-check that plant gathering is not set to "everybody does this", because unskilled dwarves are more likely to not get anything from plant gathering.
A dwarf with a high level in the skill will not only always get something but also get a lot more in quantity and does it much faster.
It only applies to plants though, for fruits it succeeds regardless of the skill level.

I just never get the lentils to blink when I try to pick them while using the direct harvest option rather than the zoning option. I will toggle my plant gathering for 'everyone' off though, and see if that helps. Thank you.

Originally posted by AlP:

There are no seasons for above-ground plants, they always grow. Is your game modded?

My game is not modded. The plants might always grow, but they do change on seasons. ike, sometimes I see grape vines, but no grapes, but sometimes grapes are listed on the tool tip. Sometimes my strawberries have visual red berries on them, and sometimes they're just green plants. So they do change. The lentils never change though.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Mynoris:

Originally posted by AlP:

There are no seasons for above-ground plants, they always grow. Is your game modded?

My game is not modded. The plants might always grow, but they do change on seasons. ike, sometimes I see grape vines, but no grapes, but sometimes grapes are listed on the tool tip. Sometimes my strawberries have visual red berries on them, and sometimes they're just green plants. So they do change. The lentils never change though.

Above-ground plants grow the same year-round, what you probably saw was the fruit ripening.

Your plants were probably harvested, and the fruit left on the farm because you had no stockpile space for them. So what died was probably the harvested items that you were supposed to put in a stockpile, the plants themselves are probably fine.

[Mynoris]

I've never actually seen the lentils off the ground. I've only seen them exactly as they were when I arrived, still wild and unpickable. And yes, I meant the fruits/produce ripening to the point of being picked, not that they don't sprout at all, but to me, growing means advancing along its life cycle. Sorry for the confusion.