Farming question from a noobie

[FullHomeless]

Hey guys! I understand that the quality of crops depends on the quality of your soil. I know that you can still manage to raise the quality of crops over time with q10 soil, but I'd still like to find higher quality soil. On the wiki, it says to dig for soil under Chantrelles. I've done this countless times and can still only find q10 soil. Is it just rare, or is the quality of the soil dependent on something else as well?

Lastly, this is the most nooby question... If I find higher quality soil, how do I implement it in my farm? Can I simply place the soil on tilled land?

Thanks!

[Kathdys]

The quality of foraged items seems to be linked to soil quality, so if you find high-quality items while foraging, you'll also find high-quality soil there. Remember, though, you can't pick high-quality items or dig up high-quality soil unless you have a high Survival skill first! This might be your problem, there's no reasonable way to determine the soil quality in an area unless you have a high Survival skill--you'll never pick up anything by digging or picking chanterelles with a quality rating of higher than your Survival skill, and if it's less than 10, the result will always be Q10, regardless.

You have to plant crops on the high-quality soil to benefit from it, I don't think you can modify soil quality by dropping soil somewhere else. Digging up soil reduces the local soil quality, though, especially if your Survival is low, so be careful about that.

[LadyV]

In order to find better soil your survival must be higher. If you have 10 or under then you will never find anything higher than 10. There are areas of q10 quality around the world but they are rare. Most places will be in the 20's or 30's. Secondly you only get the benefit of higher quality soil if you plant there. So unless your moving your farm don't bother. Lastly plants will only grow to soil quality then they have a change to gain or lose quality each cycle.

I know you have not asked but also bear in mind when you start growing trees soil quality matters. So it is worth finding.

[FullHomeless]

In order to find better soil your survival must be higher. If you have 10 or under then you will never find anything higher than 10. There are areas of q10 quality around the world but they are rare. Most places will be in the 20's or 30's. Secondly you only get the benefit of higher quality soil if you plant there. So unless your moving your farm don't bother. Lastly plants will only grow to soil quality then they have a change to gain or lose quality each cycle.

I know you have not asked but also bear in mind when you start growing trees soil quality matters. So it is worth finding.

Ok, so I shouldn't spend too much time on a settlement at this point then, correct? Just keep grinding curiosities until I have higher skills and am "worthy" of actually finding a place to settle?

[MagicManICT]

On the wiki, it says to dig for soil under Chantrelles.

You can dig anywhere to check the quality. As a matter of fact, don't even bother digging. Most curios and food that are foraged are tied to soil quality. If you find a q52 blueberry, you have q52 soil there. (There are some curios tied to clay, fish, or stone Q, too, but these are usually biome specific items, such as mountain, water, clay, etc.)

Ok, so I shouldn't spend too much time on a settlement at this point then, correct? Just keep grinding curiosities until I have higher skills and am "worthy" of actually finding a place to settle?

Settle now if you like where you are. You can always move later if you want. You'll get your crops up into the 40s and 50s so fast even on q10 soil it won't matter if you find better soil later. Better to think more about nearby clay, iron, or quality and variety of foraging than soil quality at your base.

[meus]

I have found out that most of the "good" soils are about level 45-50. Never bothered to look for any better soil.

Why? Because it doesn't really matter as much as other factors for settling a village - i.e. distance from water, some metals, the type of forest / fields around you, other villages, etc.

What I mean is, you will easily increase your crops quality to the point where it is equal to the soil quality (in about a month or so, depending on the plant growth speed - carrots are really fast, love carrots ). When you reach that point, you will start gaining +quality of the crops at the same speed, until your Farming skill becomes the limit.

So even if you have level 10 soil to plant the crops in, you will still be gaining +quality of your crops at the same speed as if you had i.e. level 50 soil (when you are already at level 50+ crops). So soil doesn't really matter for crops in the long term, just choose your settlement so that it is comfortable. Just imagine... level 1000 carrots... They were and are still somewhere around at world 7

I should note: trees do require more time to grow, so only if you plan to grow your own trees should you look for high quality soil.

P.S. Just make sure your Farming skill is always higher than the quality of the crops you collect - so that the quality will keep increasing. Of course, just use the best seeds to plant new crops, and cook or eat the "worse" seeds.