Farming 101

This guide will hopefully teach you everything you will need to know to start your own prospering farm in Project Zomboid!

Why farm?

Unless you are on a solo world with respawning loot or the amount of food loot is plentiful you will probably run out of food eventually or it might just become a pain to find some. If you do end up running tight on food there are a few ways you can keep up your stock.

• Farming
  
• Fishing
  
• Trapping
  
• Foraging

All-be-it, Farming does take the most work out of the 4, however it has the highest yield out of them too. The combination of harvested crops and cooked meat make for fantastic meals as well!

Farming Levels

Increasing Farming level gives out the following benefits.

1. None
   
2. Current phase and health shown
   
3. None
   
4. Water level becomes color coded and disease is shown if present
   
5. Growth phase/7 - Health number/100 - Water level/100
   
6. Disease number/100 (If Present)
   
7. None
   
8. Next growth phase shown in hours
   
9. None
   
10. None

You only gain farming exp when you successfully harvest a crop. Watering, checking, digging, and planting do not award farming exp.

Preparing Materials

The tools you will need for farming are as follows.

• Shovel to dig furrow
  
• Seeds of any kind (The more the merrier, takes about 4 seeds per tile)
  
• Something that holds water

Things that help but are not required.

• Fertilizer
  
• Rain Collector Barrel
  
• Walls
  
• Composter
  
• Sack (to move dirt if necessary)
  
• Gardening Spray Can x2 (for diseases in high enough level)

Preparing Location

It is not unlikely that zombies will find their way into our onto your farm when you are away, maybe even while you are there. This said it is not a bad idea to build yourself a building around the crops to keep wandering zombies out. Not to mention this will allow you to farm year round as long as the temperature inside is normal. (To my knowledge)

If you want you can even make your own field, lets say on the second floor or roof of your base! You just need to move the amount of dirt you need up there and viola!

A Rain Collector Barrel can be handy if there isn't an easily accessible source of water near-by, so building a few of those near by would not hurt.

Composters turn old rotten food into compost and if you have a sack you can fill it up and use the compost as fertilizer.

Planting

First step is obviously to dig the furrows to plant in, so get a shovel in hand and get to work! Once you have the tiles dug for planting plant your seeds and water them until it says "Plant has enough water".

It is highly recommended that you do not plant rows. Instead leave blank space all around the crop as shown in the screenshot.



This will prevent disease to spread among the entire crop, should you plant the crops in lines or clusters you risk the entire group going bad.

Fertilizer is an optional add, adding some to a plant will remove 20 in-game hours off the current growth cycle and if there are less than 20 left it will jump to the next phase immediately. HOWEVER, using Fertilizer 5 times on a single plant will kill it!

Growing Crops

Be sure to check on your crops at least once a day to make sure they are still "Well Watered". Rain Collector Barrels can save you a hike if there isn't a lake or river nearby, but they will not water your crops for you. Rain will keep your plants at the capacity for water level so if it is a rainy month you will have more free time!

The phases of plants slightly varies.

Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, and Radishes (Harvest in 23, 10, 10, & 12 days)

• Seedling (Phase 1 & 2)
  
• Young (Phase 3 - 5)
  
• Ready to Harvest (Phase 6)
  
• Seed-bearing (Phase 7)

Potatoes and Strawberries (Harvest in 20 and 28 days)

• Seedling (Phase 1 & 2)
  
• Young (Phase 3 - 5)
  
• Blooming (Phase 6)
  
• Seed-bearing (Phase 7)

Tomatoes (Harvest in 24 days)

• Seedling (Phase 1 & 2)
  
• Young (Phase 3 - 6)
  
• Seed-bearing (Phase 7)

It is recommended to harvest crops when they are Seed-bearing, since they will yield crop and the seeds to replant them!

Remember Strawberries revert back to phase 2 when harvested.
Also Carrots and Radishes need more water to start.

Threats to Crops

There are not many but there are still some things that want to hurt your precious plants.

• Firstly, Zombies! They can trample your crops completely ruining all your hard work, and wasting your water no less! Keep them away at all costs.
  
  (Players can safely walk over crops without harming them!)
  
  
• Second, Disease! The current forms of disease are as follows.
  
  1. Mildew 2. Insects 3. Devil's Water Fungi (DWF)
  
  These diseases can slow crop growth, cut the yield from the harvest, or kill the crop entirely.
  
  Mildew can be cured with Mildew Spray (Empty Spray Can + Milk) Even rotten milk works!
  
  Insects can be cured with Insecticide Spray (Empty Spray Can + Water x3 +Cigarettes x5)
  
  DWF cuts yield of harvested crops, and the cure is to keep the water level of the plant below 10%.
  
  DWF usually pops up on plants that already have Mildew or Insects so be sure to keep an eye on them.

Plant Health

When you sow the seeds, your level determines the health of the plant. The higher the skill the higher the starting health. Health also correlates to yield of harvest, the higher the better.

The levels you want to see from worst to best are: Healthy, Flourishing, Verdant, and Thriving. (Negatives not listed)

Water levels from driest to wettest go: Parched, Dry, Thirsty, Fine, and Well-Watered.

Conclusion

That about wraps it up, I might have missed something in there but there is a ton to learn and find out when you are surviving out here!

Hope this guide taught you something new or helped you in your endeavours!

Best of Luck out there Fellow Survivors!

[Markus Söder]

i've read that DWF is more likely to spawn on plants with 85%+ watering or cant spawn on plants with lower than 85% watering this would be bad for cabbages i guess. It was an old post so i dont know if this is still true however i dont think devs would spend time changing that and why would they. Do you know anything about this? i ask because detailed information on farming is hard to come by.

[Lider61]

Very detailed guide. As a veteran PZ player I didn’t know that 5 days fertilizer thing. Good job

[ArdentObserver]

I appreciate your detailed approach; thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[Unseen_Sight]

Very cool

[ZenFlakes56]

Thank you!