I am struggling with keeping my field fertility up on this current map. Last map I was going well, this time I have fallen way down.
I pay attention to the possible fertility affects of the crops, and have a decent amount of clover plant in my rotations (at least one planting in every farm every year).
ANy tips?
It may take several years of using clovers or maybe peas/bean combos to at least keep producing some food while raising fertility. Are you using the compost (waste management) buildings to fertilize them? You can try dropping grain on it and then reassigning the farmers to labor and wait for the grain to grow. Then maybe the cows will graze on them, or the abandoned crops will aid in weed production which the cows do seem to like.
I think there is a bug with regard to having the cows graze on the farms and this has been reported and discussed in the appropriate discussion group already.
They lowered clover down some to stop people to “exploiting” clover to have super fields but anyway without seeing your rotations its hard to give ya anymore ideas… but your best bet is to rotate either beans or peas along with clover for one year and only use grain once a 3 year rotation on each field then like do turnips and beans on the last year
According to the patch notes they only fixed an exploit. Might have been possible to start clover, get the fertility right at the start of the planting season and then shift the clover half a month further to get the bonus again.
First map I did (alpine-vanguard), my fertility was going up with not much of an issue.
But on my current (arid-vanguard), it’s hard to even stay level … even fertilizing a field only brought something like 1% bonus fertility ???
Check here: Farming - Farthest Frontier
Also, the clover change was to no allow grazing on clover. It is now suggested you graze cows on root crops and grains.
I will have to look into the grazing on crops, I thought I tired but showed red… will look again.
Catashe, I pretty much am doing a rotation similar to that. Some years even have just 2 drops of clover.
hhmm…
If you want a planned out area that you know you are going to place a farm then I would highly suggest you have a farm with several cows and place a grazing area. Over time that grazing area will reach high levels of fertility provided that the fodder can sustain the cows.
Give it some time and you will find a 10x10 area with high fertility. Place your farm on this and then move the cows to another grazing area. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, you will also need to apply compost as well when it is ready.
As far as crops go, I usually have the following crop rotations and it has never failed me as long as I keep up on the composting:
Year 1: field maintenance, clover, turnips
Year 2: clover, wheat
Year3: turnips, turnips, turnips
The turnips and wheat will also feed your cows until you have enough to make another field and repeat the process with another field. In the second field you can plant other things like flax for clothing, etc. as long as you use grazing areas from cows your fertility will be high. If you want to check on the area’s fertility just click the farm and see where it is as far as fertility percentage. If you allow it to, the grazing area will eventually get up to 100%. Multiple grazing areas on the same patch of land overlapping will her higher fertility faster but don’t put too many grazing areas in one spot or the cows will eat all the fodder and starve. It’s a very careful balancing game but it will pay off very well if worked properly.
Mine shows red as well if there were actual crops on the field.
With this rotation (and fertilizer twice), it doesn’t go up.
I think fertilization has been seriously nerfed (like, it can go up 1% max and goes down 1% during winter).
There are certain crops that will help with the fertility. Take a look in there. You will see one that impacts the soil in a positive manner. You may also add clay and sand to the soil and that will help as well. In addition you will need compost stations which will take waste from households which will be stored there. Upon that reaching 100% capacity (there a few storage slots) you can spread that to the field.
I am on the idyllic map and have a 10x10 farm. I did 2 crops of clover in one year. The fertility went up from 74% to 80%. Maybe it is the map type?
Yeah i think possibly the nerf on clover went too far. Im waiting until my population is creating more waste. But composting has little effect now.
Ill also wait until I can balance my soil a bit better
After doing a year of Peas and beans together my fertility on that farm went up to 82%. I think it has to do with the map type. I saw a youtube video on fertility and it does not go up a set amount, it varies.
I just fertilised 1 of my fields and it went from 61% to 76%.
What confuses people in this thread is the following: Clover, compost etc. gives different increases depending on the fertility of that field. I think it’s just the current fertility, as in, it’s harder to increase a field from 5% fertility back up than to increase it further from 60%.
(But it might be the initial fertility of the field, as in, once you brought a 5% field up to 65%, it still only sees small increases of +0% to +1%. I’m not completely sure.)
What was the original fertility on those fields, OP?
Even on the same map type, say arid highlands, a 50+% field will gain maybe +10% from being fertilized with compost, while the 5% field gains only +1%.
It’s not a recent nerf of clover or composting, it’s that their effect has been (I think since EA release even?) dependent on the fertility of the field.
Just as an aside:
Personally, I think it should maybe be the other way around. I understand that throwing some poo, I mean nitrogen at a desert field of mostly sand won’t make it magically grow into golden fields of wheat. But getting it up from 5% to 30% for still rather poor growing conditions shouldn’t take ten times as long as getting an already decently fertile field from 65% to 90%. Keeping a field at 90% is pretty easy, even when you start growing the worst fertility draining crops on it, with some compost and clover in the rotation. That takes away the need to decide whether you want to plant a lot of leek for those massive harvests, or be more conservative with the high fertility of your field. No challenge, no player agency, no tough decisions to make. On the other hand, starting on low fertility means a lot of early game heartache, many, many years to get it up and running - and I don’t think having most of your difficulty at the start and little later on is a great gaming experience.
Not sure if there’s a better way to make it fun and realistic at the same time. Maybe those plants lowering fertility could lower it as least as much on low fertility ground than high fertility soil.
I do think that the fertility increases proportionally to the current fertility.
I do have some fields that are close to 50% and manage (hardly) to go up.
But no matter how much clover, fertilizer or cow grazing I put before, it stays low.
Yeah I use the Barn to get some nice fertile land and it happens pretty fast. I do that before I clear a area for a crop and most of the time get a huge boost to the starting soil. Only have to adjust the clay/sand ratio’s!
Then with the right rotation you can easily maintain that level with fert/compost every other year or more. I normally am able to keep crops at 92% to 100% all the time. You can’t just ignore crops for a year they have to be looked at and taken care of often as things can go bad fast.
OP try this rotation to see if it boosts your fertility quickly
If this rotation doesn’t raise your fertility fast then I got no clue. Every crop in that rotation has a bonus to fert and you have a rest year with only ground cover ( Clovers ) going. I use this rotation often to boost soil regeneration quickly and it is VERY quick and still produces food for two out of the three years. Make the off year on different crops offset and you wont miss it. 
I think that the field’s fertility is tied to the biome’s base fertility, with anything at base 50% usually able to be boosted up to 100%, but below that it becomes much longer to push it up.
Anyhow, my oldest fields are only now getting up to 90+ fertility after multiple years of peas/beans, clover + maintenance and compost. And that was from 50% fertility over 30 years.
The yeilds are so much though I’ve got 2+ years of foooooood
There was a decent video on Youtube explaining fertility, just search for “Farthest Frontier fertility,” where a guy used data extracted from the game to give actual (or close to actual) values of the fertility of each plant. According to that, clover will give you somewhere from 2 to 3 fertility points, possibly depending on the biome, too, so keep that in mind.
