Possibly realm buff affecting chance of trees stunting

[Alayah]

So im observing a really high rate of trees stunting between 25-30%. In the case of my attempt at an oak and maple culture this resulted in both trees stunting before i get any seeds from them in each case. So 4 out of 4 trees stunted. I plant my trees fairly close together in rows with a space of 1-2 tiles between rows because of lack of space. I am aware that in legacy you had to plan for a fairly generous spacing but that was removed with the new version of hnh.
In my mind, one explanation for the issue would be that something has changed about tree placement that I am not aware off. Another possible explanation would be that the increased growth rate from the 5/5 woodland realm buff not only affects speed of growth but also chance to stunt. This theory is supported by other villagers that saw that change when that realm buff was improved past 2/5.
Also the speck of earth i plant them on is currently terraforming to forest, which may also affect stunting. Friends that have a fully terraformed treeplot got similar observations though.
Can someone comment on that?

[Granger]

Regarding tree stunting, here's a shameless plug:

A tree being 'stunted' should either simply grow way slower, or we need a way to remove the effect.

As it is the mechanic is not fun and should be removed if the other options are to much work.

viewtopic.php?p=670743#p670743

[jorb]

Will look at it, but, most likely: Deceived by randomness. Not a bug.

[Alayah]

I observed the fairly high rate of stunting of roughtly 25% over 100 to 200 trees since i came back a few weeks ago to a fully developed realm buff so at least my sample volume should be high enough to make an estimate. Can you give an estimated percentage of stunting that is normal? Does realm buff affect it?

Introducing hearth magic to make stunted trees grow again would also likely help remedy the issue. I mean it makes sense that not every tree is growing as it should be and that wood from every tree be used for every application. That is reflected in the variance of quality and to a degree with stunting. On the other hand it is counterintuitive that for example your highest quality tree (Like the most evenly growing, the one with the nicest crown or the most tasty and biggest fruits even strongest roots) cant be used. And loosing a whole if small generation of trees to stunting is not fun especially if they need a week to grow until they yield seeds. So some kind of special care like hearth magic needs to be applied to fix this i would like that for the immersion at least. It wouldnt be the first occasion where hearth magic can be used to fix a botched attempt at something.

[jorb]

Looked at this: The realm buff should not have any influence over the stunt chance. The stunt risk is about 1/5, not entirely off from your own experience.

Stunting is debatable as a mechanic, and arguably worked better in Legacy. Considering.

[Granger]

I reiterate my repeatedly made suggestion to make stunting slow the growth speed, instead of halting it completely.