Expected Yield Potential

[jasonbarron]

Hi all, playing with Precision Farming on in FS22 on the PC, seasons enabled. When I pull up farmland info and highlight a plot of land I see a window that says "Field Info" and at the bottom of that window "Expected Yield Potential." Some fields have much better values than others. Can that value be improved by plowing, cultivating, weeding, liming etc etc or is the value purely based on soil distribution and cannot be altered?

[LittleWatt]

Yes, the yield can be improved. Go to Help menu in PDA. Read through it. Couple of caveats. Maximum yield only comes two ways. Plowing followed by direct seeding or using a weeder. A weeder hurts Environment Score. So you need to use a sprayer on an any field you used a weeder on. Even though no weeds are around still use herbicide. Otherwise the Help menu section tells all you need to know. I would forego the RTK Station, it isn’t necessary and can often lead to you going back and fixing the fieldwork the AI helpers missed.

[NDDan]

If I understand your question correctly, no. Of course, liming, fertilizing, weeding, etc. impact the yield, but soil type is an additional thing. The display you're talking about is only about soil types, and the fields with silty clay or loamy sand will never produce like loam.

[LittleWatt]

Correct. Soil types only have a maximum yield. Not doing field prep hurts the yield.

[jasonbarron]

Ok, that makes sense. The soil types are a hard cap and if I want to reach that cap I have to get all the bonuses applied such as multiple fertilizers, lime, plowing, mulching etc.
Thanks for the input, guys, I really appreciate it. It's an interesting mechanic and means I have to be choosey about what land I purchase, too.

[LittleWatt]

I never worry much about the soil type. I know I’m going to take a hit. But, I buy the land that’s most convenient. Do I want to travel across the map for loam if clay is across the street? Not likely. Loam requires more lime and fertilizer. Are those costs negate by a higher yield? Probably, but by how much? Ultimately you want as much loam as possible, but starting out, I take what’s available for my finances. Any yield is better than no yield. Or maybe sandy loam is a field for animal crops or a nearby factory. Sandy loam will get you plenty of hay for sheep or wheat for chickens or oats for horses. But a massive dairy farm might want a loam field for hay. Or root crops as a cash crop. Or corn for pigs. You rarely ever get a 100% percent soil type so I don’t worry much about type.