[Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Greetings, all!

What would be the unforeseen consequences of a fantasy setting having crops of extremely short lifecycles but also very low yields. E.g. a crop with 1/300 the yield, but capable of providing this yield (and dying) in just 24 hours. Or 1/50 the yield, but with a cycle of 7-10 days.

I am of course postulating this to be fantasy, not historical low-tech. Some more considerations are that (a) it's probably best to make the crop somewhat picky, so that it wouldn't be able to take over the rest of the ecosystem (or make other plants similarly vigorous) and (b) I'm not sure if I want a setting with seasons or without, so I'm wondering about both variants.

Thanks in advance!

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Magic could be used if the crop is valuable - it could be either transported or conserved through magic, or both.

If the crop is unvaluable and picky like that, chances are most societies wouldn't bother doing agriculture with it. If it dies in 24 hours *but* can be conserved with reliable and cheap methods, it becomes more interesting.

If it's unvaluable but edible, It could be used as food for farmers, but since it dies so quickly, it can't even reach cities or other societies.

Anyway, I wonder what that mysterious crop is all about? Is it food? Spice? Material use such as cotton or silk? It's use in society greatly affects the importance people will give to it.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

I doubt anyone would bother with them. Since you didn't specify otherwise, I assume they take the same effort to plant and harvest, which means you're getting a tiny fraction of the yield for the same labor. Better to do the labor-intensive plowing and harvesting once with conventional crops and get enough to live off of for months than waste time on crops that won't even feed you for the time it took to cultivate them.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Hmm. Indeed I haven't put much (any?) thought into proportionally reducing the work required.

I'm basically looking for a way to create a setting with much shorter harvest cycles - numbered in days, or at most weeks.

Oh, and I intended the seeds/fruits to be as long-lasting as normal ones.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

The problem, of course, in such a short life cycle is the weed issue. If it has a low labour cost, it will dominate the ecosystem. If it is so picky that it doesn't dominate, it will have a high labour cost. If it has a high labour cost, as TBC points out, farmers will tend to prefer traditional grain crops.

Have you considered something akin to wild rice? It is incredibly easy to harvest, and the process of harvesting simultaneously reseeds the "field". Basically, you bend the stalk over the canoe and tap it with a stick. Most of the seed falls into the canoe; some of the seed falls back into the lake/river to form the next crop.

Would having 4 cycles per year (and a dormant winter), with a low labour cost akin to wild rice, work for your purposes?

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

I suppose there's some way to balance it to such a level of pickiness/labour that a field is easy to 'maintain' for a sufficient yield per time unit and per labour unit, but isn't very competitive in the wild (or at least not competitive enough to dominate everywhere)?

Thanks! This is the sort of things that would find a use in setting-building.

Maybe. Don't know yet. I'm in the very early stages of worldbuilding - I'm not even 100% sure the whole setting is viable at all, yet.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Best option would be to plant it between other crops. So, let's say you can farm for 8 months a year, if you have a crop that takes 4 months and another one that takes 3, you'll be able to plant the first, then plant the second, then plant a few of the 1 day or 1 week crop.

Armies might be interested in it, wanderers too, just carry some of them for each man, in a siege, plant them, since it's low yield, the enemy won't have the incentive to put fire to it, and since you have a lot of manpower doing nothing, you can use it to plant and harvest.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Ooooh! Nomad agriculture! Neat idea.

Might be even more justified if it magically drains the land for some period of time, and won't grow on drained land.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

It wouldn't even need magic. Just growing THAT fast is going to pull a ton of nutrients out of the soil, so anything less than burning after harvesting will kill the land fairly quickly.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Yeast does grow that quickly, although it's moderately involved to keep the colony healthy, and you have to canibalise your other crops to keep it fed.

If you're looking for nomadic agriculture, you might look into what a lot of Native American tribes used. It's not exceptionally well documented, but there is some out there. The wild rice harvesting is still done the same way, but other crops were also planted.

Also, consider apples. Drop a bunch of seeds. Walk away. Come back in 10 years. They'll be wild apples, which aren't great for eating, but they make great cider, and there's always a market for a cheap drunk.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

You might want to consider a tree crop, or at least something perennial. Instead of growing an entire new plant in days, which is pretty extreme, it grows a new crop of seeds, nuts, fruits or edible flowers. And of course ever-blooming plants are a fantasy tradition.

You may also want to think about what the plant gets out of doing this. Cycling your whole body this fast seems totally useless unless there are severe seasons that will kill you on the same sort of timescale, or weekly fires that devastate the ecosystem. Continuously fruiting at least might give you some sort of reproductive advantage, though you need a really good seed dispersal mechanism to make it pay off for anything this fast. Maybe the fruit ripens into balloons....

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Some algae do have extremely short cycles, though the yield is generally going to vary with the quantity of nutrients available to be consumed.

A problem with your scheme, actually, is that, unless the unharvested crops promptly rot, it may be easier to just let multiple crops pile up and harvest them all at once.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

It's fantasy so maybe unharvested crops:

• Spontaneously Generate into pest animals.
• Attract unwanted supernatural vermin (pixies?).
• Anger the gods

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

The only example that springs to mind is the wildflowers that briefly carpet certain deserts after isolated episodes of rain.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Since this is fantasy, keep in mind that there's an entire collage of magic that will interact with this crop (IE plant magic).

Some of the effects: Increase crop yield (Bless Plants), 1 month's growth in a day (Plant Growth), Instant Harvest (Blossom). These can all interact with your plant in unanticipated ways...

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Not touching Standard Magic with a Reach 2,3 staff. Though I suppose RPM's effects will be similar, if there's a mage with enough energy and skill available.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

Probably the best paradigm to go with for something like this would be to have it such that the seeds don't need to be planted - simply tossing them on appropriate soil will result in them taking root and growing. They need a great deal of sunlight - they can grow on well-grazed sod or bare earth, but anything more will result in the seeds simply splitting open and dying. Once they're spread out, they need to be activated via a simple magical ritual (taking a few minutes for mundanes, a second or two for mages).

The plants absorb local mana to grow rapidly, partially depleting it (see later). Once the plants grow to their full height (after a few days), they immediately fruit, using up internal reserves (effectively cannibalizing their own roots and internal structure) to produce as much grain as possible, killing themselves in the process. The plants collapse, ready to be scooped up by the "farmers," but blocking any sort of future growth. If the area still has enough mana, once the plants have been harvested one can simply use the activation ritual again (plenty of seeds inevitably fall as their being harvested) to restart the process.

Mana Depletion and Growing Times: The plants grow at a speed based on the local mana level, but risk depleting mana in the process - for every week in which plants are grown, roll against 10+mod (see later). Failure means mana is downgraded one level. Optionally, use the lower of Thaumatology and Farming instead of 10. Note these rules are partially based on the hunting/gathering guidelines from LTC3.

Very High Mana: Plants grow in 1dx6 hours, and mod is +4. Areas that are Very High Mana for Plant magic are ideal for semi-long term farms, although overgrowth can eventually deplete them.

High Mana: Plants grow in 1dx12 hours, and mod is +2. These are good places for temporary villages and the like.

Normal Mana: Plants grow in 1d days, and mod is +0. It's typically best to only plant one crop in such an area, then move on after harvest.

Low Mana: Plants grow in 1dx2 days, and mod is -2. These areas should be avoided, as it's possible for the mana level to drop while the plants are still growing!

Very Low Mana: Plants grow in 1dx5 days, and mod is -4. Very Low Mana is typically only encountered when the plants drop the mana level of a Low Mana area. Don't even bother trying to grow here - if you reached here due to your currently-growing plants dropping the mana level, the quickest solution to determine how long they take to finish is to simply double (or, more accurately, multiply by 2.5) the time they would have remaining in Low Mana.

No Mana: Plants cannot grow here. If you were trying to grow in Very Low Mana and the mana level dropped, all the plants die without any yields.


For yearly yields, something comparable to Wheat may be appropriate (or there may be multiple types of fast-growing plants, corresponding to each of the types of crops listed in LTC3). For per-crop yields, determine how much of the year the plants will grow during and assume each crop takes 3.5 days to grow.

For labor, field preparation (if necessary) amounts to trimming the grass and spreading seeds and need be done only once per growing season; it may be safe to ignore it (if not, it takes 1/5th the time indicated on LTC3 p 10). Harvesting, however, is more work-intensive, requiring around 5x as many man-days per full growing season (but note you'll be harvesting many times during a growing season).


EDIT: I see you're going with RPM. In that case, replace Thaumatology with Path of Body. The activation ritual is Lesser Sense Body with Area Effect, and the seeds themselves have been engineered to reduce the energy cost of this ritual by 80% (casting it over an acre costs 8 energy). Use the guidelines on RPM43 to determine the effective mana level of a Place of Power.

EDIT2: Changed the growing times to be more variable at the lower end.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

You could add Simple and High Powered Collaboration options as desired (T. 132). Make the ritual into a morning community prayer of all farm hands and owners.

Re: [Fantasy] [Low-Tech] Crops with extremely short cycle and low yield
 

How does the labour requirements work?

1/300 the yield doesn't fly with 24 hours, for in many places, the growing season consistutes much less than 300 days per year.

Harvesting was extremely labour-intensive (planting much less so, as per LTC3), in medieval times, so if you have to harvest every day then nobody would ever get anything else done, at all, during those 100-200 days of the year when it there is enough sun and heat for the crop to be able to grow. People would even be too tired to have sex after a harvest day, so no children would be conceived at all during that period of the year, in the rural areas. And of course almost everybody lives in rural areas, with towns and townspeople constituting only a tiny fraction of the population.