Farming (Lieju)

Applying quantitative rigour to the study of farming.

Farming Recipes

Bosc Pear

• Good Bosc Pear:
  • (initial) stake claim;#2 {wat rly 3};fert happy 2;fert hippie 2;#4 {aer gen 3};#3 {fert smurf 3};grow plant
  • (wait 1 round)
  • (every other round):aer gen 2;wat rly 2;fert smurf 2

Farming Research

Proposed Research Methodology

1. Store the plant type to a variable
2. Before each growing round
   • examine the current plant size and save to a variable
   • examine all growing conditions (e.g., water, air, nutrients, pests, etc.) and save to variables
3. During the growing round:
   • store the growing message to a variable
4. After each growing round:
   • examine the current plant size and save to a variable
   • examine all growing conditions (e.g., water, air, nutrients, pests, etc.) and save to variables

Proposed Research Data Set

• Plant type: PlantType
• Growing conditions before growing round:
  • Plant size: PlantSize_Before
  • Resources: Resource1_Before, ..., ResourceN_Before
• Growing message: GrowingMessage
• Growing conditions after growing round:
  • Plant size: PlantSize_After
  • Resources: Resource1_After, ..., ResourceN_After

Research Topics

Optimum Growing Conditions

• What are the optimum growing conditions for a given {PlantType, PlantSize}?
• Does a given {PlantType} need the same growing conditions regardless of {PlantSize}, or do growing conditions change with {PlantSize}?
• Does a different size plant (PlantSize) of a given type (PlantType) consume different {ResourceType, ResourceQuantity}?
• Do plants always consume resources, or do some add resources? (e.g., some add phosphorus to soil, some deplete?)

Growing Messages

• What do the different growing messages mean? Once we have (near)-ideal growing conditions for a given {PlantType, PlantSize}, we can selectively change the growing conditions and see how this impacts the growing messages ...
• Do different growing messages indicate plants consuming different {ResourceType, ResourceQuantity} of resources?
• Does the change in {ResourceLevel} scale linearly with {ResourceQuantity} consumption?

What Are the Different Resources?

It may be possible - and, if so, useful - to map different nutrients to real-life nutrients (e.g., phosphorus, etc.).

There is much readily available literature on Visual Soil Assessment.

Example of Research: Bosc Pear

Following is an example research session on how to grow a bosc pear plant:

Commands used to observe conditions

... which do not change conditions:

• x ground
• x insects
• x mushrooms
• x weeds

... which may change conditions:

• depress oximeter button
• push hygrometer button
• jab type I nutriometer
• jab type II nutriometer
• jab type III nutriometer
• jab type IV nutriometer
• cantilever type I contristometer
• cantilever type II contristometer
• cantilever type III contristometer
• cantilever type IV contristometer

Initial Growing Conditions

After staking claim, but before applying nutrients, we check out the growing conditions:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	few	yellow-green	bone dry	many	bunch	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
no bubbles	no sloshing	light chartreuse	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weET WEET	ponG PONG	woot woot

Prepping the Soil

We then prep the soil with our best guess at what the plant needs based on previous attempts:

• water lots R'lyeh water (x2)
• fertilize some Happy Ed's fertilizer
• fertilize some Hippie fertilizer
• aerate lots Genlab air (x4)
• fertilize lots Smurfy fertilizer (x3)

After prepping the soil, we observe the following conditions:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	many	swath	yellow-green	damp	many	bunch	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
massive number of bubbles	quite a lot of sloshing	light chartreuse	light aqua	light yellow	light pink	piNG PING	wEET WEET	ponG PONG	woot WOOT

Growing Round #1

Either wait for the plant to grow or nudge it along until you observe the first growth message:

The bosc pear plant heaves upwards momentarily, only to sink back down to a lower level.

No luck here, but let's check out the soil conditions:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	many	swath	yellow	somewhat dry	many	bunch	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
large number of bubbles	tiny wee bit o sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	piNG PING	wEET WEET	pong PONG	woot WOOT

Here is a summary of what changed:

• Water:
  • visual water from “damp” to “somewhat dry”
  • hygrometer from “quite a lot of sloshing” to “tiny wee bit o sloshing”
• Air:
  • oximeter from “massive” to “large” number of bubbles
• Nutrients:
  • Visual yellow-green from “yellow-green” to “yellow”
  • Nutr I / II / III / IV all went from “light <color>” to “almost white”
    • possibly due to the use of measurement tools
  • Contr III from “ponG PONG” to “pong PONG”

From these changes, it looks like the plant consumes water, air, and yellow-green nutrients and decreases Contr III readings. Given the negative growth message, the starting levels were a bit off.

Growing Round #2

Based on our previous experiments growing bosc pear, let's wait one more round and see what happens:

The roots of the bosc pear plant plungs into the ground with ferocity!

Success!

Let's check out the soil conditions after that growth round:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	somewhat dry	many	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
few bubbles	tiny wee bit o sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	piNG PING	weET WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

What soil conditions changed during this growth round?

• Air:
  • “Large number of bubbles” to “few bubbles”
• Nutrients:
  • Visual white from “swath” to “many”
  • Visual gold from “many” to “some”
  • Contr II from “wEET WEET” to “weET WEET”
• Pests:
  • Mushrooms from "bunch" to "few"

The plant (or the tools) consumed more air, no visible amount of water or yellow nutrients, and a little bit of white and gold nutrients. Contr II reading dropped as well. The mushrooms died off perhaps because the soil became more dry.

It looks like the initial growing conditions this round suited the plant very well.

Growing Round #3

Given the plant's apparent nutrient consumption, let's do a little farming:

• aerate some Genlab air (-dark +Air1)
• water some R'lyeh water (+water -R3)
• fertilize some Smurfy fertilizer (++dark +gold ++++white)

and then observe the growing conditions again:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	swath	yellow	somewhat dry	many	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
few bubbles	tiny wee bit o sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	piNG PING	weET WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

The only visible change was to restore white nutrients from "many" to "swath". Hopefully this will be enough to keep our plant headed skyward.

The roots of the bosc pear plant plungs into the ground with ferocity!

Yay! The plant has had solid growing rounds with the following conditions differing:

• Nutrients:
  • Gold both "many" and "swath"
• Oxygen:
  • Both "bunch" and "few"
• Mushrooms:
  • Both "bunch" and "few"

Now let's look at the growing conditions again to see what our plant consumed:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	bone dry	some	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
lone bubble	no sloshing at all	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	piNG PING	weET WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

We see the following changes in growing conditions:

• Nutrients:
  • visual white from “swath” to “many”
• Water:
  • visual water from “somewhat dry” to “bone dry”
  • hygrometer from “tiny wee bit o sloshing” to “no sloshing at all”
• Air:
  • Oximeter from “few bubbles” to “lone bubble”
• Pests:
  • Bugs from “many” to “some”

We now have good evidence that the bosc pear plant consumes a lot of air, a good amount of water, and some white. It may consume trace amounts of other nutrients, or may just be picky about the levels of other growth factors.

Growing Round #4

Let's try another growing round without changing the growing conditions:

The faint smell of soap and cumin rises to your nose as the plant jumps
up and grows.

The plant grew, but with a (presumably) less positive growing message. Let's look at the growing conditions after that growing round:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	bone dry	some	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
no bubbles	no sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weeT WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

Here's what changed:

• Air:
  • oximeter from “lone bubble” to “no bubbles”
• Contaminants:
  • Contr I from “piNG PING” to “pinG PING”
  • Contr II from “weET WEET” to “weeT WEET”

Given that the plant likes air and water, "lone bubble" of air and "bone dry" growing conditions are probably not ideal. Also, the increase in contaminants may begin to cause problems.

Growing Round #5

Let's try boosting the water, air, and nutrients by adding the same ingredients as before:

• aerate some Genlab air (-dark +Air1)
• water some R'lyeh water (+water -R3)
• fertilize some Smurfy fertilizer (++dark +gold ++++white)

The growing conditions after these changes are as follows:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	bone dry	some	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
lone bubble	no sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weeT WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

The only visible change is in air: the oximeter reading changed from “no bubbles” to “lone bubble”. Let's see how our plant grows under these conditions:

The bosc pear flowers pop and rattle as they are hauled further from the ground.

The plant grew again, but only grudgingly. Flowers popping and rattling as they are hauled from the ground perhaps indicates that the plant has enough nutrients but needs more water and/or air.

Let's look at the growing conditions after that mixed result:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	bone dry	some	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
no bubbles	no sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weeT WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

Once again, the oximeter reading changed from "lone bubble" to "no bubbles".

Growing Round #6 (Dying Round #1)

Now we expect these conditions to be too dry and oxygen-poor for the plant to thrive. Let's test this hypothesis by failing to add any air / water / nutrients:

The leaves of the plant pull back from your reach as the bosc pear plant retracts into the ground.

Muah ha ha... die plant die. Let's see this poor growing round did to the growing conditions:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
pale	some	many	yellow	bone dry	some	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
no bubbles	no sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weet WEET	pong PONG	woot woot

• Nutrients:
  • visual dark from "light" to "pale"
• Contaminants:
  • Contr II from "weeT WEET" to "weet WEET"

Growing Round #7 (Dying Round #2)

Now I'm feeling a little guilty about letting the plant die, so I toss a little air, water, and nutrients into the mix. I suspect it won't be enough, but am curious to see what happens:

• aerate some Genlab air (-dark +Air1)
• water some R'lyeh water (+water -R3)
• fertilize some Smurfy fertilizer (++dark +gold ++++white)

After adding these ingredients, the growing conditions are still poor:

Growing Conditions - Visual

Dark	Gold	White	Yellow-Green	Water	Bugs	Mush	Weeds
light	some	many	yellow	bone dry	no	few	bunch

Growing Conditions - Tools

Oximeter	Hygrometer	Nutr I	Nutr II	Nutr III	Nutr IV	Contr I	Contr II	Contr III	Contr IV
no bubbles	no sloshing	almost white	almost white	almost white	almost white	pinG PING	weet WEET	pong pong	woot woot

Indeed there there are only a few measurable changes, and those perhaps not in the correct direction:

• Pests:
  • visual bugs from "some" to "no"
• Contaminants:
  • Contr III from "pong PONG" to "pong pong"

A cough emanates from the bosc pear plant as it wastes away.

Time to give up and find a new bosc pear plant to torment ...

Conclusions

We want the initial prep to get us to the best possible growing conditions, so next attempt will involve adding:

• a little less air,
• a little less water, and
• a little less yellow-green.

For inter-round changes, we want to keep pace with the plant's rate of nutrient-consumption, so next attempt will involve:

• more air
• a little more water
• similar levels of nutrients

Hopefully the next plant will die painfully under my ministrations fare better.