New to Farming

[jasonbarron]

Hi everybody. I'm new to farming, both in the simulator and real life, and find the concept intriguing and overwhelming. I'm struggling with what equipment to purchase, what attaches to what and so forth. There are so many choices haha. As such, I have tons of questions, the first of which is: on a Farm Manager start I bought some land and plowing it, joining two small fields together and sort of extending their borders by plowing the grassy areas around them to essentially create one fairly decent sized plot. When I got out of my tractor to survey the field from the ground the info box informed me that I need to lime the ground, so I hopped back in the tractor and zoomed off to the shop where I purchased a trailer appropriate for spreading fertilizer, *censored* up a pallet of lime and zoomed back to my field.

When I got there, my tractor (medium size, 170hp, narrow tires) refused to pull the trailer through the turned up dirt. Is that a horse power problem, or a tire traction issue? The tractor had no trouble pulling the trailer on the road, for instance, only having trouble with the loose dirt.

[bossmanslim]

Narrow tires have less traction than others tires and plowed dirt has a "roughness" to it that causes the tractor bounce and loose traction.

Options:
1) change tires on tractor to standard or wide; I recommend with weights on either as compaction doesn't exist in the game
2) get a modded attachable spreader (kuhn axis 402) that can do lime and uses the tractors rear 3-point hitch
3) make sure the front weight isn't too big, say 1000kg or less.

[jasonbarron]

Thanks @bossmanslim, I'll give that a try. I know that different tires make sense in the real world, just wasn't sure how in-depth the simulation was. I love the fact that tire choices are important.

[SimpleFarmer]

If you're playing on a console I don't think there is a modded attachable fert. spreader than lets you spread lime. Might be wrong though. Good luck. And I recommend just playing the game the first round through by leasing everything before buying. When I was new to the game half of the stuff I bought wouldn't attach to the other stuff i had and I had to return it. Good luck with the new farm.

[jasonbarron]

Thanks for the advice, fellow farmers. I put on normal dual sized tires which worked like a charm and looked totally bad to the bone, too! Next question is: is there a way to bulk fill my herbicide & liquid fertilizer sprayer similar to lime, or am I limited to buying them on a pallet?

[bossmanslim]

Thanks for the advice, fellow farmers. I put on normal dual sized tires which worked like a charm and looked totally bad to the bone, too! Next question is: is there a way to bulk fill my herbicide & liquid fertilizer sprayer similar to lime, or am I limited to buying them on a pallet?

Only through mods

[SimpleFarmer]

yeah there are various placeable refill stations for everything, the ones on modhub that look like pallets with bags stacked on them are the cheapest I think, and eventually, if you want it, there is a multi filling station, but it is really big and expensive for a new farmer.
Also, I was just noticing that for a cultivator, you can get a better price per width/hp if you buy the disk harrows instead of proper cultivators. Or you can just get the seed directly seeders and avoid cultivating altogether.

[Illinois Farmer]

If you're playing on a console I don't think there is a modded attachable fert. spreader than lets you spread lime. Might be wrong though. Good luck. And I recommend just playing the game the first round through by leasing everything before buying. When I was new to the game half of the stuff I bought wouldn't attach to the other stuff i had and I had to return it. Good luck with the new farm.

There are a couple. As boss said, the Kuhn is one.

[jasonbarron]

Ok, thanks for that info. Next question: how often do I need to fertilize my crops during their grow cycle? I fertilized right before planting, is that enough?

[DirectCedar]

Ok, thanks for that info. Next question: how often do I need to fertilize my crops during their grow cycle? I fertilized right before planting, is that enough?

Base game (without Seasons) requires two fertilization steps for maximum yield. You can do it anytime as long as there is either a ground texture change (stubble to ploughed, ploughed to cultivated, etc) or a growth state change (planted to light green, light green to mid green, etc.) between fertilizations. i.e. if you fertilize once, you cannot fertilize again until either the ground state or the crop growth state has changed.

After you fertilize once you will see the colour of the fertilizer state get darker blue in the Esc menu map. When you fertilize the second time it gets darker yet.

[jasonbarron]

Ok, thanks for that info. Next question: how often do I need to fertilize my crops during their grow cycle? I fertilized right before planting, is that enough?

Base game (without Seasons) requires two fertilization steps for maximum yield. You can do it anytime as long as there is either a ground texture change (stubble to ploughed, ploughed to cultivated, etc) or a growth state change (planted to light green, light green to mid green, etc.) between fertilizations. i.e. if you fertilize once, you cannot fertilize again until either the ground state or the crop growth state has changed.

After you fertilize once you will see the colour of the fertilizer state get darker blue in the Esc menu map. When you fertilize the second time it gets darker yet.

Awesome, exactly the specific info I was looking for, thank you!

[jasonbarron]

Another question! I keep hearing about "Seasons" and "Geo" and I gather that it's a realism mod, and I'm wondering if that's something i should be looking into, or is it so radically different from the vanilla game that I'd be even further overwhelmed with the learning curve? Advice?

[FarmCatJenkins]

Another question! I keep hearing about "Seasons" and "Geo" and I gather that it's a realism mod, and I'm wondering if that's something i should be looking into, or is it so radically different from the vanilla game that I'd be even further overwhelmed with the learning curve? Advice?

Being new I would suggest getting used to the base game before trying to tackle seasons. There is a lot of planning involved and once you understand the basics its not too hard to pick up. And a GEO is just a simulated regional weather system to change how you play and what you plant with seasons

[FarmCatJenkins]

Just curious are you playing on PC or console?

[DirectCedar]

^^^
Exactly what farmcat said.

Figure out how the basic game mechanics all work, then read the manual and blog about Seasons and decide if you want to try it.

Heaps of information on the Seasons mod developers' website: www.realismusmodding.com

If you really love the game and you really love the actual idea of real farming, you will love Seasons. However it is a lot to wrap your head around all at once if you're totally new to the game and totally new to the concept of commercial agriculture.