As an avid player of the popular city builder Farthest Frontier, I know firsthand how critical it is to implement effective crop rotations. With so many factors to juggle like fertility, disease resistance, and yield optimization across limited seasons, designing crop cycles can be daunting for even seasoned frontier folk.
Through countless hours tilling the fields in Farthest Frontier, I’ve tested endless crop combinations and settled on rotations that consistently perform well across all stages of settlement growth. In this article, I’ll share my proven crop rotation designs and tips for maximizing your agricultural output
Why Crop Rotations Matter
Before diving into specific rotations, it’s helpful to understand the core benefits of crop rotations in Farthest Frontier:
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Maintains soil fertility – Rotating fertility-boosting crops like peas beans, and clover with fertility-draining crops can preserve soil nutrients rather than gradually depleting the soil.
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Controls diseases and pests – Switching between different crops prevents any single disease or pest from taking hold and decimating yields across seasons.
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Optimizes yields – With strategic rotations you can maximize output across limited planting seasons and farm space.
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Provides crop diversity – Varying crops gives a mix of resources for settler nutrition and crafting needs.
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Efficient labor usage – Staggering crop cycles keeps your farmers consistently busy while avoiding overlapping labor peaks.
Clearly, investing time into planning 3-year crop rotations pays off exponentially as your village scales up. Now let’s explore some field-tested crop sequences.
Fertility-Building Rotations
When first establishing farms, rapidly improving soil fertility is crucial. Here are two rotations focused on boosting fertility:
Clover Only
- Year 1: Clover
- Year 2: Clover
- Year 3: Clover
The clover-exclusive rotation quickly enhances fertility at the cost of food production.
Peas + Clovers + Maintenance
- Year 1: Peas
- Year 2: Clovers
- Year 3: Field Maintenance
This option provides a fertility lift while also generating some bean resources from the peas. Use these in the early game to prepare soil for more bountiful rotations.
Balanced Fertility Rotations
Once you’ve built up decent fertility, these rotations aim to maintain it while producing solid yields:
Greens and Beans
- Year 1: Cabbage
- Year 2: Beans
- Year 3: Leeks
The cabbages, beans, and leeks provide a balance of vegetables and proteins.
Root Vegetables
- Year 1: Carrots
- Year 2: Turnips
- Year 3: Field Maintenance
The carrots and turnips yield storable, non-perishable foods.
Grains
- Year 1: Rye
- Year 2: Wheat
- Year 3: Buckwheat
This grain rotation generates staple ingredients for bread, beer, and livestock feed.
Advanced High-Yield Rotations
With ample fertility, farmers, and infrastructure, implement these bountiful rotations:
Wheat/Rye and Leeks
- Year 1: Wheat
- Year 2: Leeks
- Year 3: Rye
Produces massive grain and vegetable yields but requires regular compost to maintain fertility.
Beans, Turnips and Flax
- Year 1: Beans
- Year 2: Turnips
- Year 3: Flax
Provides fibers, proteins, and root vegetables with minimal fertility demand.
Tips for Crop Rotation Success
Beyond the rotations themselves, here are some tips for maximizing field productivity:
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Standardize field sizes for efficient livestock grazing. 10×10 is ideal.
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Stagger rotations across multiple equally sized fields to harvest crops annually.
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Prepare soil initially with clover and maintenance to boost fertility.
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Match soil composition to each crop’s preferences for optimal yields.
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Compost regularly in high yield rotations to maintain fertility.
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Leave labor buffer days in planting/harvesting to prevent missed windows.
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Prioritize new fields so existing ones are tended properly.
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Pause new field construction during critical planting and harvesting periods to avoid labor conflicts.
Example 3-Field Crop Rotation Plan
To demonstrate these principles in action, here is an example crop rotation setup using 3 equally sized fields:
Field 1
- Year 1: Wheat
- Year 2: Leeks
- Year 3: Rye
Field 2
- Year 1: Beans
- Year 2: Turnips
- Year 3: Flax
Field 3
- Year 1: Clover
- Year 2: Field Maintenance
- Year 3: Compost
This plan delivers a robust supply of grains, vegetables, fibers, and proteins while maintaining fertility. The clover and maintenance field rejuvenates the soil while producing no yields. Staggering the cycles results in annual harvests of each crop type.
Crop List
| Crop | Resource Output | Yield (max 10) | Avg. Harvest Per Tile | Frost Tolerance (max 10) | Heat Tolerance (max 10) | Rockiness Resilience (max 10) | Weed Suppression (max 10) | Grow Time (days) | Impacts Fertility (%) | Fertility Dependence (max 10) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beans | Beans (category) | 6 | 11 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 125 | +1 | 6 |
| Pea | Beans (category) | 6 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 92 | +1 | 4 |
| Buckwheat | Grain | 7 | 11 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 101 | -1 | 4 |
| Wheat | Grain | 9 | 22 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 160 | -7 | 10 |
| Rye | Grain | 8 | 20 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 160 | -5 | 7 |
| Carrot | Root Vegetables | 8 | 13 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 103 | -2 | 6 |
| Turnip | Root Vegetables | 6 | 8 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 81 | -2 | 6 |
| Flax | Flax | 6 | 12 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 135 | -2 | 9 |
| Cabbage | Greens | 9 | 17 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 125 | -4 | 9 |
| Leek | Greens | 10 | 25 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 158 | -6 | 10 |
| Clover | N/A | 5 (not harvestable) | 8 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 96 | +3 | 4 |
General Tips
- The first year after building a field focus on 2-3 seasons of field maintenance (or 2x field maintenance + 1x clovers if the fertility is low)) so that the next year you can setup your proper 3 year rotation without having to worry about getting the field state to normal levels over many rotations
- Peas can be serve as a great fertility-boosting crop as they can be planted in the earliest part of the year AND will still allow a clover and a maintenance season in the same year. This is currently one of the best fertility-boosting year designs that still has a maintenance season.
- Consider the timing of your different crops and when they keep your farmers busy. The start of a crop season is busy with planting, the end with harvesting – so you want to make sure your farmers dont have too many conflicting things to do at any one point of the year across all your fields
- Plan to graze livestock on your fields when grains or root vegetables are growing, as this will boost your field fertility and provide fodder for the livestock. Since the livestock grazing area is 10×10 it is advisable that your field size is standardized to at least this size. Note that grazing on clover is no longer possible as of patch 0.7.5.
- Every crop has a preferred soil composition – so you want to plant similar (or close) soil preferences in the same fields
- Crops that have a high weed suppression will not require more than 1 field maintenance season per 3-year rotation, so you can instead focus on clover seasons to keep the fertility high). Likewise crops that have a low weed suppression will require (usually) 2 seasons of field maintenance per 3-year rotation
- Rockiness Resilience is really only an important trait if you intend to plant immediately after your field is built, as you can get the rockiness down to 0 quite quickly by only performing field maintenance for the first year or two, and it will stay low with very little maintenance after that
- Farmers will prioritize the construction of a new field over working existing fields, meaning that you might miss a few harvests while the new field gets setup. You can get around this by pausing construction of the new field during planting/harvest times (clover season is great too as there’s no harvest) and unpausing during growth phases.
- No Matter the size of your field adding compost to it will always apply the same fertility boost. This makes using compost on large fields way more efficient. Use the maximum amount of field expansions to increase this benefit even further if you have enough workers.
The Best Crop Rotations In Farthest Frontier! + Tips
FAQ
What is the best sequence of crop rotation?
- Year one. Section one: Potatoes. Section two: Legumes, onions and roots. Section three: Brassicas.
- Year two. Section one: Legumes, onions and roots. Section two: Brassicas. …
- Year three. Section one: Brassicas. Section two: Potatoes.
What is the best crop rotation schedule?
Crop rotations are usually practiced on a 3- or 4-year plan. If you have the space, plant your crops on a 4-year plan. For smaller spaces, go for a 3-year plan as a minimum.
What are the best combinations for crop rotation?
| Type of Vegetable | Friends |
|---|---|
| Cabbage | Beets, celery, chard, lettuce, spinach, onions |
| Carrots | Beans, lettuce, onions, peas, peppers, tomatoes |
| Corn | Climbing beans, cucumber, marjoram, peas, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, zucchini |
| Onions | Cabbage, carrots, chard, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes |
What is the best crop rotation practice?
Make a plan to grow certain plant families in one area of the garden this season and in a different area next season. For crop rotation to be most effective, don’t plant an area with vegetables from the same plant family more than once every three to four years.
Does farthest frontier have a good crop rotation?
Reddit-user, Littlenold, have done some Farming Frontier farming research and is able to provide some good crop rotations for early, mid and late game. These crop rotations in Farthest Frontier will give you high fertility during years – and as a bonus a little food as well.
How do you rotate crops in farthest frontier?
Rotating by Crop Groups For a simple rotation plan consider rotating your crops in the order of the groups above: legumes, followed by leafy vegetables, then fruiting crops, and lastly root crops. What are the best crops for food in farthest frontier? A mix of apples, pears, and peaches ensures food all year long.
What is farthest frontier farming?
Farthest Frontier Farming is a little more complex than you might be used to in most colony sims. While you don’t have to worry about watering Crops, you will have to worry about 8 specific factors for each Crop: Crop Yield – How much of a Crop you can expect to get. Frost Tolerance – How well a Crop handles the cold.
What is a good wheat farming rotation in farthest frontier?
Rye rotation (use on 3 different fields and rotate) This is a good wheat farming rotation in Farthest Frontier for your early/mid-game. The fertility will not suffer that much, and you get a lot of wheat for your bakery an cows. Wheat/Rye + Leeks (use on 3 different fields and rotate + use compost)
What is farthest frontier & how does it work?
RELATED: Ways Grand Strategy Games Change Your View Of World Leaders Farthest Frontier allows players to manage three years of crops simultaneously, handling the current year as well as planning for crops two years in advance. While this may seem like a small feature, understanding it is absolutely essential to a proper crop rotation.
How many crops should I plant in farthest frontier?
I typically like to plant 1 Crop per field and 1 harvest of Clover (to restore the soil’s fertility a bit) for 2 of the 3 years. The third year in the Crop Rotation is used on another run of Clover and two runs of Field Maintenance. The best Farming Crops to plant in Farthest Frontier are Peas and Turnips in the early game.