Disclaimer
- Only applies to "field grass" (created by cultivating a field and then planting grass).
- Seasonal growth enabled, 1 day per month (default setting).
- FS 1.5 and Precision Farming 1.0.1.0.
Growth stages
- In general, grass growth is advancing 1 stage per month.
- After harvesting, grass neither requires cultivating nor seeding to regrow.
- When harvested, it is at what I will call stage 0, shown as "harvested".
- At stage 1 it is "growing".
- At stage 2 it is "ready to harvest" and has a deep green color (longer than stage 1 but similar color).
- At stage 3 it is still "ready to harvest" and yields 50% extra. The only way to see the difference is by looking at the grass, it is denser than at stage 2 and has a yellow/bright green color.
- When grass rolling at any stage (not soil rolling), it will be set to stage 0.5, also shown as "growing" (the same applies for cultivating/seeding grass)
- Stage 0.5 will advance to stage 1, just like stage 0.
- Exceptions when it does not grow 1 stage per month:
- There is no growth at all from December to January and from January to February.
- From February to March, growth can only advance from stage 1 to stage 2 (so neither from 0 or 0.5 to 1 nor from 2 to 3).
- From November to December, the only possible growth is from stage 0.5 to stage 1, and grass at stage 3 will get downgraded to stage 2.
Strategies/cycles
- The maximum total yield per year is 10 months worth of growth, requiring 4 harvests: 2 harvests at stage 2 and 2 harvests at stage 3 (alternatively 5 harvests at stage 2, but requires more work, fertilizer and lime for no benefit).
- You can harvest at any month as long as the grass is in the corresponding stage. But in order to get 10 months of growth one harvest has to be in November, and that month it has to be rolled to stage 0.5 after harvesting.
- You can combine 2 full cycles (stage 3 harvest) of grass with 1 cycle of oat. The only way is planting oat in April, harvest it and seed grass in August, harvest and roll in November, harvest grass and seed oat next April. This is far more profitable than any other cereal crop, plus you should be able to use synergies with your foraging/baling hardware for straw. It will require more seeds and work than having dedicated fields for grass and cereals, but you will get a lot more money out of your land compared to just growing cereals.
- Alternatively you can harvest 3 times at stage 3. Downside is you only get 90% of the yield. Upside is you require less work, fertilizer, lime and you can harvest in October with no need to roll to set it to stage 0.5 (if you harvest in November you will still need to roll as you will miss 2 growth stage advances if you don't).
- If you don't apply lime after every harvest, yield only goes down by a small amount (seems to be around 1% per skipped cycle, cumulating). But since the amount of lime required for reapplying increases linearly with every harvest, you don't spend more lime if you reapply more frequently, it just requires more work. This should apply to any crop, not just grass.
Further research
- Can grass be mulched (most likely not)
- Does grass benefit from mulching when switching from a mulchable crop to grass (likely yes)
- Does soil rolling increase yield (probably yes, but can only be done right after it was seeded)
- Does grass rolling have an effect now (other than putting it to stage 0.5 in November. Nitrate levels still seem unaffected, just like in PF 1.0)