Best Food to Farm?

[DaHoboAtWalMart]

Simple question: What's the best food to grow? And when I ask this, I mean, which is the most profitable (grows fastest/sells highest), and is the most preferred to eat by colonists? What do you usually grow, and why? So far I've only been growing potatoes, but I've got so many spare potatoes that I usually end up having to sell thousands every time a trade ship rolls around - so if there's a food that sells better, it'd be handy.

Thanks 

[Wex]

Potatoes yeld a bigger crop. Berries have no malus, being eaten raw, sells for 1.5 times potatoes. Cotton sells 2.5 times potatoes, but you can't eat it, obviously.

[skullywag]

I believe outdoors = potatoes, hydroponics = berries. I read somewhere the reasons why but cant remember or find the link.

[christhekiller]

Berries don't piss colonists off if they eat them raw?

Guess I'm forbidding my cooks from cooking berry food now then

[ItchyFlea]

I've always gone for berries, as they don't have a debuff if eaten raw. That way I don't have to worry about building a cooking stove if other building projects take longer than expected.

Plus they sell for more silver than potatoes do.

[Barley]

Always Berries. Even if potatoes have a larger yield, they're still worthless the second a solar flare erupts...or a siege breaks your power source...or the main conduit from the solar panels back to base explodes...or your cooks get sick...or a raid goes bad and all your colonists are too busy cleaning up and healing to cook...or an influx of prisoners outstrips your meal-making capacity...or an incendiary mortar hits your kitchen.

You get the point. Berries are better for when things go wrong. It's why I made a thread earlier saying they needed to segregate the mysterious blight event into different sub-events for each crop: It encourages growing a variety of foods instead of just berries.

[skullywag]

shouldn't be too hard to suppress the blight incident and replace it with 2 that target the different plants. Might need some clever trickery or a third to target everything else. Ill add it to my list of mods to build. Man I need to find more time....

[Wex]

The absurdity of the blight is: I have 3 kind of plants growing (potatoes, berries, cotton); 1 potato field, 2 cotton field; 2 berry hydroponic (separated), 2 potatoes hydroponic (separated).
They all die at the same moment.
Also, why can't we grow agave?

[milon]

You can grow berries, sure, but I like to encourage the wild ones instead.  At the start of a colony, and as I have time, I clear-cut everything that isn't berries in an area.  I enlarge this area over time, and occasionally harvest from it.  Cons: Takes a good bit of time upfront.  Pros: Blight proof, and no time spent planting later on.

[Cimanyd]

I'd kind of like an answer to the original question. What plant gives the most food in soil? In hydroponics? What gives the most profit in soil? In hydroponics?

Maybe I should do some digging or testing... how exactly soil affects plants, how much items a 100% plant produces, market values...

[skullywag]

You can grow berries, sure, but I like to encourage the wild ones instead.  At the start of a colony, and as I have time, I clear-cut everything that isn't berries in an area.  I enlarge this area over time, and occasionally harvest from it.  Cons: Takes a good bit of time upfront.  Pros: Blight proof, and no time spent planting later on.

THAT is genious. Some work required for some decent reward. Just my cup of tea.

[Mikhail Reign]

I'd kind of like an answer to the original question. What plant gives the most food in soil? In hydroponics? What gives the most profit in soil? In hydroponics?

Maybe I should do some digging or testing... how exactly soil affects plants, how much items a 100% plant produces, market values...

I remember seeing a spread sheet that someone made up somewhere on the forum dealing with growth rates v costs v planting times....

[Matthiasagreen]

I'd kind of like an answer to the original question. What plant gives the most food in soil? In hydroponics? What gives the most profit in soil? In hydroponics?

Maybe I should do some digging or testing... how exactly soil affects plants, how much items a 100% plant produces, market values...

I remember seeing a spread sheet that someone made up somewhere on the forum dealing with growth rates v costs v planting times....

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6613.0

[Cimanyd]

Looks like potatoes are the best food production, even in hydroponics, mostly because they give more food per plant when harvested (4.5 for potatoes, 3 for strawberries). It also looks like cloth is the best for market value, even in hydroponics, though I'm not sure how exactly food sale works. (for example, food sold to food traders is much worse than even the normal half market value or so).

If I got the math right, the only reason to grow strawberries over potatoes is because they're better raw, as everyone keeps mentioning. With the lower items per harvest, not only do they make less food, but they require more colonist work; even if they grew 1.5 times as fast as potatoes (they don't) that's still that much extra sowing and harvesting for the same food. Though if they grew that much faster they'd be best at market value in hydroponics.

[BetaSpectre]

Potatoes grow faster, and in larger numbers. Late game you should change to berries though, potatoes are more like survival rations not regular meals.