some fail to thrive like trees planted too close together. trial and error planting

Thanks all

Are you also trying to plant something in the wrong biome?

Crops do not rot, ever

You can be too close to stone, too close to a building, too close to a lot of things, they can even be destroyed at night by mobs walking around if you are not asleep, but they do not rot.

do... do crops even decay?

Shadows also interfere with growth, but once grown they don't rot.

Hm. I will look more closely, I could've sworn I had some crops dissapear after coming back to my fort after being away for several days

Crops will wilt and die if they have invalid planting zones. That includes being overly crowded, too close to obstacles like rocks, or covered by a roof. Generally you'll know within 10sec or so if a crop is destined to poof.

Originally posted by xx:

Hm. I will look more closely, I could've sworn I had some crops dissapear after coming back to my fort after being away for several days

some of your plantings could have been too close to each other...they will turn brown almost immediately. The brown ones will eventually die. Also, as mentioned above, any plantings that do not have direct access to the sky will die (an oak tree branch for example will block the sky).

But any crops that are planted correctly, and spaced correctly and not damaged by mobs in anyway should last indefinitely.

If they get destroyed by combat, they despawn, if they're too close or not enough sky overhead, they'll stay brown and disappear when you harvest[carrots] while some of the Plains crops[flax,barley] seem to pop back to life when you harvest the ones that are too close and are ready...the carrots, for how thin they are seem to need more space than onions, which I can plant closer together than carrots and not have them go bad??

There is a mod that will allow you to mass plant a 5x5 patch of perfectly spaced plants, assuming you have the stamina for it. It's called MassFarming on NexusMods, since I'm not sure if I can link directly to the mod page here. Really helps take some of the tedium and the guesswork out of planting.

The crops rot?

I am unaware of this feature.

As far as I know, you plant something the only reason it won't live forever is:

1) you harvest it
2) you plant it too close to another crop or structure
3) It gets destroyed by a mob
4) it gets destroyed by you

WTF?! Crops rot?

Originally posted by Qurik:

A scythe is used to harvest grass- barley, flax, etc. A scythe would be a terrible tool to harvest root crops like carrots and turnips.

Very consistent actually.

there is no scythe
there is huge 2 handed hammer to collect crops

I want to see irl video of you cutting grass/barley/flax using huge hammer by smashing ground in their proximity ;D

Whenever someone tells me a scythe is an implement for harvesting legumes, I always feel a little confused, given that I once mained a scythe as a weapon in pretty much any game Ive played for years. Watching someone peacefully go about their business in a field with one is kind of surreal feeling.

Originally posted by Wariat117:

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

This works for barley and flax but will destroy carrots and turnips.

oh
very inconsistent I guess

A scythe is used to harvest grass- barley, flax, etc. A scythe would be a terrible tool to harvest root crops like carrots and turnips.

Very consistent actually.

iirc carrots are part of the plants that dont drop if destroyed by a weapon

Originally posted by Wariat117:

iirc you can hit them with weapons to pick them up?
so 2 handed weapons and their area attacks might speed up stuff

This works for barley and flax but will destroy carrots and turnips.

Use a crop harvesting mod if you really don't wanna deal with it.

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

Originally posted by Wariat117:

iirc you can hit them with weapons to pick them up?
so 2 handed weapons and their area attacks might speed up stuff

This works for barley and flax but will destroy carrots and turnips.

oh
very inconsistent I guess

Originally posted by ThumbThumb:

I've been farming carrots lately and I tend to plant 150-200 at a time and picking them takes a pretty long time, is there a faster way to do it? (that preferably doesn't require obstructing the environment)

Hold W and E and use mouse to walk a line down the center line of your crop....you will rarely miss any.

iirc you can hit them with weapons to pick them up?
so 2 handed weapons and their area attacks might speed up stuff

Hold 'E' as you walk over the crop, every carrot you eyeball will auto harvest.

Mods.

I hold down E and just walk and scan ever the tops