Guide to Farming

­A Farmer’s guide to the Wild Wasteland, 2nd Edition.
Written by Daniel Robertsson

Introduction
“You should write a book (…), call it ‘Wild Wasteland’.”

-         Forgotten Namesake.

You’ve found yourself glaring through the contents of this book, and for that- I thank you. This is one of the oddest tasks I’ve found myself working upon, to write down my own thoughts and tips that I’ve given others in the past, so I thank you for what I hope will be your patience and your curiosity. It’s placed in shaky hands, but as I’ve tended crops, I’ll treat your time as best as I can.

All of us have a reason for practicing farming, be it feeding oneself and their loved ones, to serve a purpose in the market and fill in a niche, or to develop the very act of farming into a fruitful endeavour. For these, and only these, I will write onto you what I know. For those that seek power in the plants, I will not share such power within this book, so you will find yourself wasting your time.

Basics of Farming
There are many parts of farming to go over, and before I share with you those, there are some basic premises that I must explain to you. First and foremost:

Percentages – You most likely didn’t expect this when you started farming, and I was shook when I found out myself that there was a specific pattern of mathematics within farming. To explain to those that don’t know, percentages are effectively how much of something you’ll receive. If I were to write ‘1’, in this context, I’d say you will receive 100% of something. If I were to write ‘0,5’; you’ll receive 50% of something, 0,05 means 5%, and this is key to understanding potency.

Statistics – This term is used somewhat loosely, but it’s meaning is narrow and straight to the point. Stats in a plant means number of things, but to go over the ones that you’ll see when you’re out farming:

Plant Age – This is a measurement for how long a plant has been alive. I am ill-certain in how it’s actually done for our world and theirs, as plants seems to age quicker than us, a boon certainly for those who just want to do farming for a few days a week as oppose to forever be bound by it. The rough estimate that I have is that one plant age is equivalent to thirty seconds.

Soil’s starting stats – Every soil in the world starts off all the same: 100/100 Water, 10/20 Nutrients (of which they are EZ Nutriment).

Lighting – It might seem obvious, but some don’t entirely know this, so I will try and help clarify this part as best as I can. Depending on how well the area you’re working within is lit, your plants will either suffer or prosper. Depending on if you’re doing a mushroom or a regular plant, it needs some form of a light, either by the sun or by torches. An obvious solution can also be to plant a decent potency glowshroom next to other soils to illuminate them, setting up tribal torches is another effective solution, or if you have access to a workshop: flashlights.

1.     Potency
This determines the size and amount of contents you will find in a fruit.


 * It’s used to figure out how much you’ll receive of a plant- 100 is the highest value you can have, and 0 is the lowest value you can have. 100 means that based on the percentage content within a plant, you’ll receive a certain amount of that chemical or nutrients, or vitamins based on the product of potency and percentage of that specific plant. 100 potency on a 50% plant will mean your plant will contain 50% of whatever it produces within that plant and will be much larger than its normal counterparts. The value can range from 0-100, with 100 being the best.
 * Example: Pluck a fresh Xander root from the Wastes and compare it with most of your harvests of xander. Its size will most likely be larger, due to it having a higher potency value.

2.     Yield
This determines the amount of something you receive when you harvest.


 * It’s straight forward, with 0 being the worst value you can have (meaning no harvest), and 10 being the best value you can have. If it says 5, you’ll receive 5 fruits from your plant. The value can range from 0-10, with 10 being the best.
 * Example: Some plants may produce 3 fruits, while others produce 10 naturally. Tobacco is a great example, as it naturally has 10 yield.

3.     Production Rate
This determines the amount of time in plant age you will have to wait before you can harvest a plant. It normally ranges from 1-10, but exceptions exist.


 * After you’ve harvested, the production rate will determine how much you have to wait, but on your first harvest, it’s the sum of maturation rate and production rate that will determine when you can harvest for the first time.
 * Example: Wheat has the fastest production rate, in comparison to apples and oranges, which are leaning more on the slower side.

4.     Maturation Rate
This determines the amount of time in plant age you will have to wait before you can harvest a plant for the first time if it possesses the plant trait perennial growth. Otherwise, you can just add this onto the production time for any plant if it’s only single time harvesting.


 * What does it mean? – If I have a production rate of 5, and a maturation rate of 4, it’s just 5+4, equals 9. Meaning when the plant has reached the plant age of 9, or you’ve waited 4,5 minutes: it’ll be ready for harvest.

5.     Endurance
This determines the maximum health your plant can have.


 * While this stat isn’t exactly ‘necessary’, it can actually have some great implications in what your plant will be capable of performing for duties, and what you can expect to do with it. It’ll impact how long it can stay alive and how much toxins the plant is going to be able to take. The value can range from 10-100, with 100 being the best.
 * Example: Tower Caps have a naturally high endurance, pour weed killer on it and compare the amount you can pour on that in regards to other plants.

6.     Life span
This determines how old your plant can be before suffering.


 * This is key for plants that require longer waiting periods before you get your fruits. Much like us, when plants reach a certain age, they will start to deteriorate and lose their ‘strength’ that they once possessed, until at last, they themselves pass away. The values can range from 10-100, with 100 being the best.
 * Example: Not entirely certain. I’d gander tree-based plants like apples would have a high value, while wheat would have a lower value. Plant something and apply nutrients and water: and then just wait for a long time. Watching the grass grow…

7.     Instability
This determines how unstable your plant is. This value varies from plant to plant.


 * To explain this stat here would take a long amount of time. Depending on the level of instability your plant has, an effect will come as a result of that level. It does not have to be irradiated to become unstable, using fertilizers like E-Z Nutriment and Left-4-Zed will increase it, but so will uranium. These values can range from 0-100, with 100 being the most instable.
 * Example: Corn is highly unstable to begin with, a value of 50 - if you plant corn and succesfully harvest it (assuming you haven't added new fertilizers to the soil), you'll get the effects found within the 41-60 instability range. Flowers, on the other hand, tend to have a much lower instability, around 0-5, meaning you won't see any effect. Reffer to the Instability chapter for more information.

8.     Weed Growth
This determines the amount of weed your soil will have a chance of being subjugated to every 30 seconds.


 * This is a concept that I have battled with a lot, as knowing the exact time when you must clear out plants of weed is crucial, as waiting too long and your plant may be overwhelmed. It appears that every time your plant ages, it has a chance of being subjugated by weeds proportional to your plant’s weed vulnerability. The values can range from 0-10, with 0 being the best.
 * Example: Gaia for instance is a plant that is notorious for it's incredibly high weed growth and being overtaken by weeds in a matter of seconds, while other plants you can live be for minutes and be completely fine with. This means that Gaia has a high weed growth and high weed vulnerability, which will be described below.

9.     Weed Vulnerability
This determines the chance for weeds to amass in your soil and the chance for your plant to be overwhelmed and replaced by the weeds.


 * Weed vulnerability is worked in percentages once more. If your plant has a vulnerability value of 50, it means that every 30 seconds, there’s a 50% chance that X amount of weed will spawn in your soil, and if it reaches 9-10 weed value in the soil, it will calculate again 50% whether or not your soil gets overwhelmed by weeds and replace the plant on it.
 * Example: You may notice how sometimes, even though you have a seed with high weed growth, the weed growth itself doesn't happen regularly like other plants, but instead happens on a semi-rare occurence, this means that your seed has a low weed vulnerability score.

Part 0: The Right Preparation
To start off farming, you’ll want to retrieve the right tools and equipment you’ll be using for your farm, these will be relatively simple to start off with, but can become advanced based on which are you’re working for. This will assume you belong to the Wasteland, and the limitations of technology that exist there:

Soils – Without a soil, your seed packet can’t become a plant. To tilt soils, you’ll need sand, and using sand to make into sandbricks, you can then at a cost of 3 sandbricks per soil tilt the land to become suitable for planting. Pick a good spot with sufficient access to nutrients and water, or you will find yourself in dire need for bottled supplies.

·        Important Note on Soils:

Soils have a few more important statistics to just let you know about.

1.     Water (0 > 100)


 * The hydration of the soil, this stat is important for regular plants and those classified as weeds. If this value goes down to 0, those plants will start taking damage, while fungi can continue existing without concerns.

2.     Nutriments (0 > 20)


 * The nutrients that the plant can use in the soil. This is important for regular plants and fungus, and key to improving your plants depending on what fertilizers you've used. If this value goes down to 0, those plants will start taking damage, while weeds can continue existing without concerns.

3.     Pest Growth (0 > 10)


 * This is a hard one in particular to talk about. Pest Growth is a measurement on the amount of worms or parasitic insects that’s inside your soil and draining your plants. They will constantly deal a set amount of damage to your plants, starting miniscule and ending horrendously if you allow it to persist. My personal guess would say that pest growth happens around once every six-seven minutes, but can be countered with the use of compost, diethylamine or pest killer. The Cultivator will not work.

4.     Weed Growth (0 > 10)


 * Weed Growth, most farmers that have actively worked will know the suffering this value can cause you. When the value is either 5 or higher, your eyes will be able to spot their roots and devilish thorns come up and try to establish themselves in your soil. Unless you know that your plant has weed growth 0, you'd best remove it.

5.     Toxins Levels (0 > 100)


 * Depending on what you pour into the soil, ranging from weed killer, pest killer, radium/uranium, etc… You’ll cause the toxicity of the soil to rise depending on what you poured in. This will also deal damage increasing depending on the amount of toxins levels you currently have against the plant that's within, some plants being able to endure without problems, while those that have an endurance score less than the toxins levels will rapidly decay.

Part 0,5. The amount matters
Something that has come up now is how to improve the plants. No more do you wait for the plant to become harvestable to see changes, rather, you actively change it depending on the fertilizer you've put on it. For instance, if I describe something that'll increase yield or potency of a plant, you can usually assume that by pouring more of that stuff on a soil, it'll increase the amount you improve it by per plant age. This also gives you the ability to make mixes of fertilizers, for instance, if you want to improve potency and yield; blend equal parts of EZ-Nutriment or Saltpetre with Robust Harvest or Diethylamine.

Example - Suppose that I have a soil with 10u EZ-Nutriment. Suppose also that for every unit of EZ-Nutriment in a soil, the potency goes up by 0.1 and the yield goes up by 0.05 for every plant age that passes, while draining 1u of nutriments from the soil. This means that if we assume it's 10u EZ-nutriment in a soil, it'll increase the potency by 1 for every plant age that passes, while yield gets increased by 0.5 for every plantage - or by a solid 1 for every 2 plant ages that pass.

Part 1. The Right Tools
I’ll go over the tools of the trade, ranging from spades and cultivators, the three types of fertilizers you can use upon nutriment-providing thing that I want that'll be capable of adding stats better than the base amount in it. So, I add 20u of Saltpetre instead of the 10u EZ-Nutriment. And Saltpetre increases potency by a 1 for every amount in it. That means after 1 plant age, the potency'll go up by 20, and the production speed will be decreased by 1 (0.05/amount).et of eyes, and the most crucial tool of all: the plant analyser.


 * 1) Spades, unlike the shovel, is a tool that’s designed for removing weeds and plants you no longer want from your soils, allowing you to plant new seeds. It’ll take a few seconds to get the roots of the offending plant out, but it’s a lot better than using a shovel. Shovels will cause you to dig up the entire soil, rendering it unable to be worked upon and needing replacement. Spades can also be used to dig up the ground to retrieve more sand to convert into sandstone, which will allow you to produce more soils to work upon.
 * 2) Cultivators are key for managing the weed growth. Weed growth will be what you curse the gods for allowing to exist, as they can hit vulnerable plants faster than you’ll have a chance to rescue them, so try to your best degree to maintain the weed levels within your soil by cleaning up with a cultivator- it’s your best bet for a healthy plant and a healthy life, and it doesn’t cost you much aside from calories.
 * 3) Plant Analyzer is the most important tool that you have for high end farming. It will allow you to investigate the stats of a plant and get a view of what you will receive upon harvesting a plant. It’ll also give you sight into different traits a plant will have.

Three common fertilizers exist, that all have a special, unique property to them, and purpose for existing:


 * 1) EZ-Nutriments – Most basic of all the nutriment increasing substances you can pour upon a plant. At the start of a week, most soil will have 10u of this stuff already on it. What it does is that it gently increases potency, yield and instability over time.
 * 2) Left-4-Zed – Causes a plant to increase it's instability over time, be it by a large amount or small amount depending on the concentration of it within a soil. Other than that, it does not much else.
 * 3) Robust Harvest - Causes a plant to increase it's yield over time, while lowering a plant's instability.

Part 2. Different types of agents that can be poured on a soil, and their effects.
There’s a lot of different types of agents that can be used while farming that’ll produce benefits to it. From healing to removing toxins, all the way to something as simple as hydration. I’m intending on going through some examples here, but not all:


 * 1) Water – The most basic of liquids, this will hydrate your soil in a 1:1 ratio. 10 units of water poured on, means 10u of water added to the water levels. However, it also has a unique ability of diluting out toxins in your soil. For every unit of water, you apply to a soil, you’ll remove 0,2 toxins levels: meaning, if you dunk 100u of water on a soil, you’ll remove 20u of toxins.
 * 2) Compost – Most places that I have seen that’re genuinely organized will have one compost bin available to them. You can put your seeds in to generate 3u of compost, or 10u of compost if you put in fruits or vegetables from a plant bag, otherwise it'll be too messy to put in. For the time being, compost does nothing.
 * 3) Sugar – Sugar doesn’t really do much for plants, and instead causes pests to move in. Do not pour sugar on your plants unless you’re intending on getting rid of the soil or create a breeding nest.
 * 4) Ash – This will heal up plants while removing weeds. Add this to plants that are succeptible to weed growth if you cannot be around to constantly clear the harvests.
 * 5) Diphenhydramine – This is a powerful yield increasing agent, that'll over time increase the yield much faster than Robust Harvest. It'll also lower instability quite tremendously. Apply this if you're growing corn and don't desire the whackery that comes with it, or if your plants are reaching instability levels you don't desire.
 * 6) Saltpetre – A powerful potency increasing agent. It is unique because of it's ability to improve production speed, meaning that if you pair this up with a fertilizer that'll increase yield, you'll always max out your plants in terms of harvests.
 * 7) Ammonia – A significantly less effective version of diphenhydramine. This has a chance to heal your plant and increase the yield. From what I've seen, it's about 10%.
 * 8) Uranium – Radium and Uranium are interesting beasts. They will harm your plant and increase the toxins levels in your soil, so you have to be varied of pouring too much on a plant without healing it once it looks wounded. But, if you want to actively mutate your plants, this is a necessity.
 * 9) Holy Water – Believe it or, the plants seems to be believers, and they will be healed by the water blessed by a priest. This also, however, has the ability to increase instability.

There’s plenty more things you can use that aren't mentioned in this guide. It's down to you to explore and see what can be poured on it, as I am only capable of sharing what I've seen work. If you find any other chemicals with effects upon soils, please do tell me and I'll update the list while crediting you.

Part 3: Instability and mutations
When I initially wrote this guide, the winds of change hadn't come across Yuuma. Now, farming as we previously knew it is no more. Instead, the plants that once would react instantly upon the application of radium, or the changes that'd come upon a plant being ready for harvest, is not how you now improve or change plants. Instead, the plants now have an instability among them. Some plants have an extremely low instability value, flowers or wasteland plants I have found to be incredibly stable, whereas corn for instance has an obscenely high instability to begin with.

Depending on what you pour onto a soil, be it E-Z Nutriment or Left-4-Zed, a plant's instability may increase or decrease over time. If it increases, new changes and such may be observed from the plants, while if it decreases, the plant will be less inclined to suddenly change out it's own stats or start producing noxious substances. Instability is a hard phenomenon, even for me to grasp. These are general notes I've made so far: It appears that if manage to go beyond one instability level (example: from 41-60 to 81-100) you will inherit the benefits of the previous instability levels, with the exception being the instability levels 60-79. For instance, your plants will not mutate into a new species if you reach instability level 90, but you will receive special harvests if you harvest a plant at instability level 73.

A plant will also NOT mutate into a new species if you have the Gaia Blessing on your soil or auto-grow on your Hydroponics Trays.

Part 4. The Grind.
Grinding down reagents from plants is a key feature in farming that I would consider to be underused. Most plants contain great chemicals for both recreational use and for saving lives. For instance, the Rainbow Weed produces mindbreaker toxin; which can be used to treat those with reality dissociation disorder or be taken recreationally if you’re a masochist.

Other plants that are more common amongst us, such as the Broc Flower, will produce Saline Glucose and Bicaridine, Saline Glucose and Bicaridine being great for treating brute damage. Xander root, on its side, contains antitoxins and saline glucose as well, meaning it can treat some of your brute, but it’s best used for getting rid of toxins in your system. Of course, most people would convert Broc Flower and Xander root into Healing Powder, good on them if they intend to fight nasties with lasers and bullets, but those who fight natures toxins will be left stumped by it as Healing Powder doesn’t work against toxins. For this reason, you should attempt to grind up a few xander root and keep them in bottles for anti-toxin purposes.

We have more common ideas, such as grinding razorgrain into flour, but there’s another plant that can be used for that exact purpose, and if you let it mature, can even produce more flour than razorgrain: it’s called Pine Nuts.

Part 5. Making things out of what blooms.
“Anything if in the correct dosage, can be deadly, even incorrect dosage!” – Yes Ma’am.

In this part, I intend to go over a few recipes that I have personally used in regard to self-treatment and treating others that are in severe pain. Most of it is relatively basic, and you can go deeper into it depending on what you know.


 * Recipe List


 * 1) Mannitol – Grass, Sugar (White Beet, Sugarcanes), Water.  Yes, as a Tribesman or Wastelander, you must not walk around with brain damage, waiting for a doctor to come along. The recipe is simple in nature, grind up around 5:1 ratio of grass for every sugarcane you intend to add, mix in with water, and you’ll get a gritty brew that tastes not that great, but will keep your mind healthy. Had to use this recipe a lot while I had a friend in my head.
 * 2) Gold Bars – Golden Apples, Ice Peppers, Metal.  Unbelievably, you can make your own gold bars following this simple recipe. Just grind up a few ice peppers with golden apples, and mix metal in at a steady dosage and you’ll be capable of retrieving gold bars. Usefulness is not guaranteed.
 * 3) Wasteland Soap – Liquid gibs, ash, water, and a lighter.  This one hasn’t been as useful since the vendors came that allows you to purchase soap bars, but you might still find some use for it, which is why I’m mentioning it. Scoop up about six piles of liquid gibs and burn a piece of paper to retrieve ash. With this ash, mix with water in the same beaker and then heat up the solution until you produce your soap bar. If it fails, you’re probably lacking in gibs.
 * 4) Synthflesh – Wood Planks, Blood, Aluminum can, nettles, grass, and a lot of sticklights.  Believe it or not, if you dedicate enough time to a task, you may prosper still. Synthflesh will be capable of mending the wounds that death beyond death has marked someone with, and by that I mean- they shot your friend to the point an open casket funeral's out of the option. Important Note: To get Carbon out of Wood Planks, you must grind it and then burn the container with a lighter until a dark substance is formed.
 * 5) Pax – Ambrosia Deus + Rainbow Weed + Water.  A powerful agent that seizes up all violent thoughts in the person who has this liquid within them. It can be used to sedate those who are insane or used to break up fights if placed within gas grenades.

Part 6. The Plant DNA Manipulator
I would argue that the most powerful tool within farming for anyone to possess, is the Plant DNA Manipulator. A machine that takes up the space of a chem-dispenser, alcohol-dispensery or vending machine, it’s capable of rewriting the makeup of plants to suit your needs, should you have the parts for it. This can be entirely skipped, should you not be a farmer who possesses one.

For some easy points as to how you can use it, I will bring up:


 * 1) Razorgrain  On its own, razorgrain at 100 potency only produce 5 nourishment that you can convert into flour. But, if you should use a Plant DNA Analyzer, you can use it to extract from a high-nourishment containing plant (Pineapples, Watermelon) and take that gene, and place it within Razorgrain. This will increase the yield of flour per razorgrain by upwards of 20%, so instead of 5 flour, you will receive 20 flour per razorgrain at 100 potency.
 * 2) Chemical-creations   In the previous chapter, I mentioned Pax, and you might’ve noticed that the contents it required was Rainbow Weed, Ambrosia Deus, and Water. We can take from A. Deus synaptizine, and from Rainbow Weed mindbreaker toxin, and alas- from Watermelons we can take water production to instantly make Pax within a plant, ready for harvest and use.
 * 3) Boosting and unlocking the power of farming  I will not go into too much details here, but certain traits when combined together will unlock new, awesome powers that few would be capable of grasping what it is you're actually doing. Try it out amongst yourselves, and see what trickery you can succeed in creating.
 * 4) What plants can I use to extract powerful stats from?  To give you a good overall view, here's a few suggestions:  Tower caps for Potency.  Tobacco plant for Yield.  Razorgrain for Production Speed.

Part 7. The Composts of the Frontier
There appears to be new composts that have come to existance, first noticed when I was mutating plants and seeing composts such as 'alacritous' or 'stabilizing'. After having examined the plants, spoken with the Wayfarer's Tribes and the Legion Camp, I've come to realize that there does exist new composts that can be made using specific juices from the plants of the Wastelands. While I do not know entirely their effects, I will write down what I've discovered:


 * Stabilizing Compost - Mix equal parts compost, honey and milk until a sweet smelling scent comes from the mixture. Use to restore stability to a plant at the expense of potency.
 * Reactive Compost - Mix equal parts compost, mutjuice and datura tea until a noxious scent develops. Use to raise instability in a plant at the cost of health.
 * Alacritous Compost - Mix equal parts compost, punga juice and ashes until a heinous aroma bursts forth. Use to raise potency, yield and reduce harvest time.
 * Fortifying Compost - Mix equal parts compost, yucca juice and potato juice until an earthy smell seeps from the liquid. Use to raise endurance, lower weed chance while healing the plant.

Part 8. Traits
Traits are certain special features that can be found in plants. Traits change how plants and their contents react with their environment, and can be used to create some things of extreme usefulness, and others can be used to create deadly weaponry. I will describe to you all the traits that you should be aware of, and with a good warning: do not abuse them. There exists more with unique combos to them, those I leave up to you to find out.


 * Hypodermic Needles - Needles grow along the outer layer of the plant- hypo meaning low, dermic meaning skin. It's needles you can barely see, but they are there. If you don't wear gloves you can sting yourself on these, and if you do get stung, a portion of the plant's contents will be transfered into you.
 * Liquid Contents - Means that the plant's insides are mostly composed of liquids. If you throw a tomato for instance, it'll splat on contact with anyone or any surfaces. This is what it means.
 * Densified chemicals - Normally, a plant can only hold 50u of any reagent within it - but if the plant has densified chemicals, it can hold a total of 100u instead. Really nifty if you want to do research.
 * Perennial Growth - You can harvest a plant multiple times without destroying the plant. For instance, apple trees or orange trees. Or more locally, a banana yucca tree are good examples.
 * Electric Activity - The plant has a slight current going on within it. This trait is incredibly useful actually, as if you have a plant with this trait, and you eat it, it'll actually recharge your batteries by a proportion of it's potency. At 100 potency, it'll recharge all your batteries. Just be careful about eating a plant you don't know the contents inside of it.
 * Capacitive Cells - The cells within the plant have the ability to store electricity. If you somehow get a plant with both Electric Activity and Capactive Cells, you can make plants that have an enormous power-cell capacity within, capable of competing with technologies that doesn't exist within the Wasteland normally.'
 * Fungal Metabolism - The plant's a mushroom more than a normal plant. This means it can survive with nutrients alone, doesn't require as much light as other plants and cannot be overwhelmed by other weeds.
 * Weed Metabolism - The plant's a weed more than a normal plant. This menas it can survive with water alone, and cannot be overwhelmed by other weeds.

Part 9 - Ambrosia Gaia
This is a topic that's been around for a long time. Before I wrote this guide, I'd use Radium and Uranium to mutate Ambrosia Vulgaris into Deus, and Deus into Gaia. Gaia's a unique plant in that, atleast as I believe it, it was the original plant that the gods used to fertilize the soils all around us and give the ability for life to blossom. Within the plant there exists a unique liquid called Earthsblood. It's the Earthsblood that lets a soil become immortal, glowing, a warmth spills from it while sustaining any plants lucky enough to be planted within it while removing pests and weeds to it's best ability.

Now, you can do that once again. By composting 7 Gaia leafs into a soil, you can be blessed by it as well. It'll stop all nutrient drains, refresh the water, kill off pests and weeds (-5) and radiate it's own light. A plant in these soils can survive for weeks without any help from the outside, meaning if you want to walk away from your farm without it being infested or dying off plants, you can if you grow Gaia and impregnate the soil with it's quality.

Part 10 - Soils VS Hydroponic Trays
An argument for the millenia: Should I use a Hydroponics Tray, or a soil?

When faced with this question, you must think to yourself personally: What will I use the soil for, how much will it be used, and what's my overall plan?

Hydroponics Trays have a few massive benefits over soils - primarily, a hydroponics tray can be upgraded to have more nutriments and water. Secondarily, instead of needing Gaia blessing to turn the tray into an auto-growing heaven, it can just enter Autogrow (Ctrl+Click). The added nutriments, as discussed in the previous parts of amount matters (Part 0.5) means that a plant's instability can be increased alot faster, a plant's stats can be increased faster and the whole ordeal. The fact you don't need Gaia also means you can just get down to business.

The main benefit of soils however, is the amount you can place out. If you do not have access to, say, a plant DNA manipulator, so you cannot insert the perennial growth trait and such just infinitively harvest xander and broc from the same plant, you can just replace that by farming a bunch of them at the same time in multiple soils. Soils you can easily make with just some sandstone, whereas Hydroponic trays require a multiple components to build. Soils I would argue is also better for customizing a farm to get the layout you want to grow a certain plant in - either abunch of clumps or stretched out, whereas Hydroponic trays you can shift around with a wrench, but you have overall fewer of them.

Truth be told, like usual with farming: a mixture of the two is usually the best: The plants you want to increase the stats on, in Hydroponics Trays, the plants that are just one-time harvest or you're happy with their stats, in the soils.

Parting Words
Well, you've made it to the very end of this guide. In reflection of it all, I've mentioned alot of what I know: but not everything. Because, I believe, that the best way to train up new people, is to allow them to explore and dedicate time to find the way that they personally love farming. This is merely the tips and tricks that I would give, have given, and used personally.

I would like to thank my beautiful girlfriend Oakley Sterling, my great friends Lucy, Tycho, Eleonor, Sera, Shank, and many, many more for being patient with me and allowing me to do my own farming. I hope we can spend some more time together with each other some day, when I'm not busy cultivating the fields!