The outstanding Precision Farming DLC, and the great joy it brought to my farming simulator experience, got me thinking about what other aspect would benefit the most from a similar technology upgrade. To me, that is tillage. What Precision Farming did to soil chemistry, Advanced Tillage would do to soil mechanics.
I spent some time thinking of how that could be implemented and came up with some thoughts that I think are a sound starting point. Some of it might be implementable as a mod, other aspects probably would work better as a DLC or game feature. Without mod skills and with no time to acquire and practice such skills I will just put those thoughts here, hoping it might serve as inspiration, help someone who has similar or related thoughts, or at least prompt an interesting discussion on tillage in the game and in real life.
High level goals
1. Add variation to tillage by supporting commonly used tillage practices in modern farming.
2. All concepts used and introduced should be simple enough to be explained in no more than one or two sentences to a player with next to no prior knowledge of tillage practices.
3. Simple practices like “run over the field with a cultivator or a disk, then plant” should still work and give decent yield. More sophisticated methods should only give a small or moderate yield increase. Add opportunity for complexity, but do not enforce complexity.
4. Give the user flexibility in how they do tillage, while providing rewards in the form of yield improvements for well executed strategies. This should not just be a new set of fixed lined up hoops to jump with only one strategy being correct, but rather give the user new opportunities.
5. Associate tillage yield improvements with individual crops so that different tillage practices are best suited for different crops.
6. Give map makers flexibility in defining how various tillage practices affect crop yields, thus considering regional and soil differences and allowing innovation and different opinions of how tillage effects crop yield.
The player would be able to consider things like:
• “Does it make sense to acquire this additional tool and make one more tillage pass per crop, or will the yield increase not make up for the time and effort?”
• “Should I buy this set of tools that are perfect for my favorite crop, or should I use this other set of tools that are almost as good but also work better for other crops?”
• “Does it make sense to incorporate the surface layer to get a better seed bed, or should I leave it in place to prevent soil erosion?”
Implementation idea
• Define a set of attributes that represent various effects of tillage (e.g., deep tillage, surface tillage, incorporating surface material into the soil).
• For each implement, assign the set of attributes that this implement performs (e.g., a chisel plow agitates the soil on all layers and incorporates surface material but does not give a smooth seed bed; a harrow does not agitate the soil at all but smoothens the surface layer). For backwards compatibility with existing mods include a default set of attributes for existing classes of implements (“cultivator”, “disk harrow” and so on).
• For each crop, define yield impact for each tillage attribute, as well as any attributes that are necessary for sowing. This per crop attribute list is defined per map. For backwards compatibility with existing maps include a default attribute list. Variation: Make this lookup independent of the maps so a crop tillage attribute list can be a stand-alone mod.
Suggested attributes
Light tillage
Affects the upper couple inches of soil.
Yield increase for all crops; see open item on no-till.
Example implements: Disks, cultivators, power harrows.
Medium tillage
Affects the soil to a depth of 6 – 12 inches.
Significant yield increase for many crops, necessary for some crops.
Example implements: Cultivators, chisel plows.
Deep tillage
Affects the soil to a depth of 2 feet or more.
Yield increase for some crops. Constitutes “plowing” (i.e., resets a field from “needs plowing”).
Example implements: Moldboard plows, subsoilers.
Soil inversion
Turns the soil over so that lower layers end up on top.
Yield increase for some crops even compared to deep tillage. Leaves a bare soil surface, resulting in yield decrease due to erosion if configured thus for a particular map. Suppresses weed for that crop cycle.
Example implements: Moldboard plows.
Surface incorporation
Incorporates upper layers of soil in deeper layers.
Slight yield increase for some crops on some maps. Gives a slight nitrogen boost from trash incorporation provided straw was chopped rather than swathed. Significantly improves the nitrogen boost from manure; alternatively make this a requirement for manure to be effective on nitrogen levels. Gives nitrogen boost from cover crop incorporation.
Example implements: Cultivators, chisel plows, moldboard plows.
Nutrient injection
Injects nutrients such as slurry or fertilizer in the soil.
Injected nutrients do not require “Surface incorporation” to be effective.
Example implements: Fertilizing drills and planters, slurry injectors.
Surface material slicing
Chops and slices up surface material, including root stocks.
Necessary for planting most crops (configurable per crop).
Example implements: VT-tools, disks, cultivators, root choppers, plows, no-till seeders.
Seed bed smoothening
Smoothens the upper soil layer to give an optimum seed bed.
Slight yield increase for most crops.
Example implements: Disks, harrows, some drills (i.e., those drills that the game considers not to need cultivation).
Suggested implement attribute lists
Moldboard plows: Deep tillage, soil inversion, surface incorporation, surface material slicing.
Subsoilers: Deep tillage.
Cultivators, chisel plows: Medium tillage, surface incorporation, surface material slicing.
Disks, power harrows: Light tillage, surface material slicing, seed bed smoothening.
Chain harrows: Seed bed smoothening.
VT tools: Surface material slicing, seed bed smoothening.
No-till seeders: Surface material slicing, nutrient injection if applicable.
“Cultivating seeders” (e.g., Vaderstad Rapid-type implements): Light tillage, surface material slicing, seed bed smoothening, nutrient injection if applicable.
Slurry injectors: Nutrient injection.
Suggested crop attribute lists
My knowledge in this area is limited. I have some ideas, but they are probably not accurate enough. Would rather leave that to more knowledgeable people.
Bonus idea: The agronomist
The agronomist advises the user on tillage and fertilization strategies for a given field and a given crop.
The user selects a field and selects a crop, and the agronomist provides up to three options for how to prepare the field for that crop using different tools to maximize yield or give close to maximum yield. E.g., Option 1: Chisel plow, disk, plant, solid fertilizer. Option 2: VT tool, plant, solid fertilizer.
The agronomist could always be available for free, e.g., as a service from a local university extension, or could require a fee per field per crop cycle as a paid consultant. The agronomist fee, to include a $0 fee, could be a map attribute.
Issues and open items
- 1. How to handle no-till. I.e., what yield gain should “light tillage” provide? If that yield gain is significant and there is no drawback to "light tillage" nobody would do no-till.
2. For strip till, is it sufficient to just provide the implements, or should there be additional attributes for strip till?
3. Is there a way to affect weed other than “weed/no weed”? Some tillage practices should have an effect between “no weed suppression, relying on roundup” and “suppresses all weeds”.
4. Should broadcast fertilizer spreaders require “Surface incorporation” to be effective? Should slurry spreaders (as opposed to slurry injectors) require “Surface incorporation” to be effective?
5. Should cover crops have the option to either be killed with herbicide (provides weed suppression only) or to be worked in with “Surface incorporation” (weed suppression and nitrogen boost)?
6. Surface textures. E.g., if the user has already ran a cultivator and then wants to run a disk, how do they see where they have already been? Not a problem if this is a new game feature, but a mod might have to rely on different levels of shading.
7. Should “soil memory” be included. E.g., some practices might give a short-term yield boost but results in decreasing yield over time. I propose not since this adds significant complexity both to game mechanics and to user presentation and visualization.
8. How to visualize the attributes supported by a particular implement on the shop pages. Requires game support for an additional set of icons, or support for a data base driven text field with the necessary localization support. Doable for a DLC or game feature, not sure how to do it for a mod.
