Talk:How do I manage my seeds and crops

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Stockpiles

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• You can also create a custom stockpile that will only accept plants, to avoid having it all mixed up with your meat and drinks. It would be a good idea to have this stockpile near your brewery, farmer's workshop, kitchen, etc.

I find this makes harvesting a very drawn out process. If I put the plant stockpile near the same squares as the seed stockpils then create a seperate stockpile near the relevant workshop, then my farmers don't trudge from the farm plot all the way to the kitchen. Then hopefully a dwarf with just food handling turned on will take seeds from dining rooms to farms, plants from farms to workshops, and drinks/prepared food to profession-based dining rooms. Not foolproof - sometimes farmers do haul their harvest all the way to the end stockpile - but even that can be fixed with forbidden doors. This tactic will keep your farmers farming, get them highly skilled, and make all your plant stacks at least 3.

I tend to dump rather than harvest stacks of 2 or less as they aren't worth my brewers/threshers/chefs time.

I am also starting to think that farming is over-rated: just buy food, cook it and sell prepared meals. It means you don't need as much space set aside for butchery, mill, farm workshop, tannery etc. Just a food stockpile and relevant workshops near the trading post. GarrieIrons 02:52, 7 July 2008 (EDT)