Farming with Fertilizer OR Not (Alpha 15.2)

If you grow crops for making foods and drinks and cant decide whether to use fertilizer or not, this guide might help you. I experimented using various soils, tilled and untilled, fertilized and unfertilized to determine how to produce the best crop yield. This guide also lists the various ways to create fertilizer, the ingredients and timeframes it takes to make it.

Farming experiment

If you are a survivor who makes your own food / drinks (Meat Stew FTW) or perhaps want to make an endless supply of beer, farming can be a very useful activity. Seeds are easy to obtain by crafting them from plants / vegetables found in the wasteland or purchased from the trader. With a little time and effort you can have all the foods and drinks you can handle.

Where you plant the seeds matters. The soil type and preparation of the soil can make a big difference in crop yield. I wanted to know how to get the most from my efforts so i conducted an experiment using all the different available seeds (excluding trees) and planted them in 4 various soil types: grass block, dirt block, tilled dirt block (gardening hoe), and fertilized dirt (gardening hoe + fertilizer) The following chart shows the amount of "product" obtained per seed planted on each type of block.

seed type:......crop yield-per seed>......grass:......soil:.......tilled:.......tilled/fertilized:

Corn.......................................................1..............1.............3..............5
Potato.....................................................1..............1.............2..............4
Blueberry................................................1..............1.............2..............4
Mushroom(outdoor)................................2..............2.............3..............4
Coffee.....................................................1..............1.............2..............4
Hops***....................................................1..............1.............2..............4
Chrysathemum........................................1..............1.............2..............4
Goldenrod................................................1..............1.............2..............4
Cotton......................................................1..............1.............3..............5
Aloe Vera.................................................1..............1..............2..............4
Yucca.......................................................1..............1..............2..............4
Mushroom(indoor/darkness)....................2..............2..............3..............4

*** hops seeds and ability to make beer (book) are only available from trader at this time.

As you can see above, you should always till the soil (at minimum) otherwise you only yield 1 item per seed with exception of mushrooms.The recipe for mushroom spores calls for 2 mushrooms (plus a dirt fragment) to create 2 mushroom spores (seeds) so you can actually double up on mushrooms by planting them on "untreated" soil. Using fertilizer gave the best results in terms of yield but its rather expensive in my opinion and takes a LONG time to make.

There are 5 ways to get fertilizer: Trader, Looted from various places, Crafting in campfire or chem station or cement mixer. The "cost" and time varies when crafting fertlizer, depending on the method, as follows:

Campfire: 23m 47s per unit made- 2 turds / 15 nitrate powder / 3 dirt fragments per unit

Cement Mixer: 15m 22s per unit - 10 rotting flesh / 15 nitrate powder / 10 dirt fragment

Chemical station: 12m per unit- 1 turd / 10 nitrate powder / 3 dirt fragment per unit

The crafting times stated above are the default times with no ranks in "quicker crafting" taken. I have not tested the effects, but, I assume you can reduce those times by 50% with all 5 ranks of Quicker Crafting filled. Note that these times are REAL time not in-game time (ie- making 5 units of fertilizer in the chemical station takes 1 RL hour)

Availability of ingredients for fertilizer may determine which method you want to use to craft it.

Turds, of course, are found by looting toilets. They arent especially common (ie- i looted 20 toilets and got 4 turds... your results may vary as its random)

Rotting Flesh is an easier resource to aquire. After killing zombies or critters, use a knife on the corpse until everything disappears. you will gain rotting flesh, bones and animal fat. ANY dead critter or zombie corpse you find can be harvested this way so its quite easy to get a good supply of flesh for making fertilizer.

Nitrate powder can be obtained from mining. I often find mounds of it, right on the surface, in the snow biome. Use suitable mining tool and harvest it. It can also be found in cave POI's, on the ceiling, in the form of stalagtites and visible patches of it can be found on cave walls. Use mining tools to harvest.

In my opinion, tilling the soil with gardening hoe is a good enough way to increase your food supply, while allowing seeds to be crafted from extras, until you have the resources to make / buy fertilizer. Once the soil is fertilized i believe the soil stays that way (unless the dirt is destroyed) so it can be used over and over after one application of fertilizer. I could be wrong (I did not test this)

tip: you can aquire the chem station and / or cement mixer by finding them in world and using the wrench on them until "destroyed" at which point they go into your inventory allowing you to place them wherever you want. Make sure you remove any resources from them before doing this as anything inside wll be lost forever. Of course, you can also craft the chem station and cement mixer if you have obtained the proper skils and equipment to do so.

I hope this guide helps you get the most out of your farming efforts.

Eat. Drink. Stay Alive.

PS Visit my newest guide, Thanks

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=864204531

[flyingdeathmonkee]

in reading this, you really see just how much the game has been dummed down now (a23)...

[Averianolvis]

Had such high hopes for this game back then.

[borgbits_sasha]

Welp, this is WAAAY out of date now, lol!
Hoes aren't even a thing now, nor is fertiliser as such. Instead, you make little farming blocks of soil, encased in wood. Still requires zombie flesh and nitrate though, I believe.
And sadly, yes, you can't even "use" toilets anymore. Those were good days! Remember when you needed to find a toilet if you ate a can of chilli? I found it hilarious! :D
Now, you can't even use a chair. Sad...

[DeathHarb]

Not everyone knows how to use fertilizer like myself would be nice if you included HOW to use it since this is a "guide" on it after all

[Mr. Sterling]

Great guid but needs to be updated

[✪Unicorn]

Nice Guide! +1

[Gladi8er65]

@jetcf- Currently making a guide filled with Tips and lesser-known information about the game and its mechanics.

[jetcf]

right more guides they are very useful

[jetcf]

i read your other guide i think it is amazing

[Starplay545]

Thanks alot very helpful ,