Farming quality clarification

[Procne]

I have some problems with quality of my crops dropping and I have heard some wild stories about farming mechanics, so maybe someone could clarify some stuff for me, and whether stuff I have been told is true:

1. Does quality of same type of crops planted nearby affect other crops? If I plant some low ql barley and some high ql barley nearby - will I get some averaged quality?

2. Does quality of different type of crops planted nearby affect other crops? If I plant low ql flax near my high ql barley - will barley's quality drop?

3. Does leaving crops unharvested for a long time result in dropping their quality?

4. Does farming skill matter when planting or harvesting?

[lachlaan]

I've got one too! Do crops follow the dirt quality field properly or do they follow water quality by some weird bug? I'm near Ess/vit water, crops all going high essence. Dirt is 10 Essence, i am baffled utterly by this.

Also, if the water field isn't to blame in that situation, then why would crops go high essence on 10/40ish/40ish dirt? Crops are starting to look like 25/15/25 in some places.

[TeckXKnight]

1) No, only if you harvest them together and mix their seeds, then their quality will average.
2) No, under no circumstances.
3) No.
4) Only when planting. You need the +seed skills like Gardening when harvesting to get higher yields though.

They follow neither dirt nor water quality. They have a -2/+5 growth range between generations and are softcapped by your farming skill when planting them. Be careful when mass harvesting and mixing seeds, small variances in crop quality will lead to massive quality drops across your harvests.

[Procne]

1) No, only if you harvest them together and mix their seeds, then their quality will average.
2) No, under no circumstances.
3) No.
4) Only when planting. You need the +seed skills like Gardening when harvesting to get higher yields though.

They follow neither dirt nor water quality. They have a -2/+5 growth range between generations and are softcapped by your farming skill when planting them. Be careful when mass harvesting and mixing seeds, small variances in crop quality will lead to massive quality drops across your harvests.

Thank you, that helps a ton

[bdew]

I've noticed some weird +/-1 variations in seeds planted from the same bucket and harvested at the same time. Anyone has any idea what causes it?

[TeckXKnight]

I've noticed some weird +/-1 variations in seeds planted from the same bucket and harvested at the same time. Anyone has any idea what causes it?

Yes, time. Apparently even a few seconds of difference can shift qualities slightly, which causes tons of problems. If you have 2 tiles of crops and one is q17/18/19 and the other is q18/18/18, if you average the seeds you'll end up with q 17/18/18 crops, effectively killing any gains you could have potentially made that harvest. JLo clarified that even though 5 hours is enough time for the all of the qualities to have effectively shifted, quality shifts happen gradually and constantly.

[naosnule]

which causes tons of problems. If you have 2 tiles of crops and one is q17/18/19 and the other is q18/18/18, if you average the seeds you'll end up with q 17/18/18 crops, effectively killing any gains you could have potentially made that harvest.

That's only a problem if you plant few crops. If you plant many, even as little as 16 tiles, most of them will have same gain and thus only a few will be "destroyed".

[Drevar]

Distance can also affect the quality of the same set of seeds. If you have a very long row of crops, the ones at one end may have a different quality modifier than the ones at the other end. Plus add in the time it takes to get to the end of a row and you can end up with quite a mix of qualities.

[lachlaan]

Mechanic Clarifications
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Each batch of a crop which is planted in the same area (roughly two minimaps), time (roughly five hours), and of the same type(carrots, peas, barley, &c), will be given the same random quality modification uniformly, and planted tiles of that batch will thus all have their qualities affected in the same way. This was intended to reduce what we perceived as the simple hassle of having to inspect each seed stack individually, and then perform the rather boring operation of simply selecting the best one. If you wish to maintain different crop "strains" -- presumably to have more samples with different random seeds to select from when replanting -- you may do that by planting several different fields at distances in time or space. We are not entirely sure how farming and potential crop selection should ideally work to be the most fun and engaging. Feel free to discuss.

For a clear definition of what "a very long row" might be. As well as for how the time thing is supposed to work.

[MagicManICT]

Time and distance, as best as I understand it.

Crops planted at the same time and near each other will get the same RNG for quality changes. The longer in time and the farther away you get, the more likely you are to get a variance off that RNG. More than 5 hours or outside of a 300x300 area, and you get a whole new RNG. Best I can think of is some of the graphs of random noise I've seen when studying Chaos Theory. There will be points of little variance in the graph, then points of large variance.

Sorry if that isn't any more help, but that is, as I say, my best understanding of it.