As a big fan of the popular city-building game Farthest Frontier, I can say from personal experience how important it is to use good crop rotation. It can be hard for even experienced frontierspeople to plan crop cycles because there are so many things to think about, such as fertility, disease resistance, and getting the best yields in the shortest amount of time.
I’ve spent a huge amount of time tilling the fields in Farthest Frontier, trying out a huge number of crop combinations until I found rotations that work well at all stages of settlement growth. This article will talk about my tried-and-true crop rotation plans and give you tips on how to get the most out of your farming.
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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Keeps the soil fertile—Rotating crops that add fertility, like peas, beans, and clover, with crops that take fertility away can keep the soil’s nutrients from slowly running out.
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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—Strategic rotations can help you get the most out of 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
- Focus on 2-3 seasons of field maintenance (or 2x field maintenance 1x clovers if the fertility is low) in the first year after building a field. This way, you won’t have to worry about getting the field back to normal levels over many rotations the next year.
- Because they can be planted early in the year, peas can be a great crop for improving soil fertility. This is because they still let you have a clover and maintenance season in the same year. This is one of the best year plans for increasing fertility right now, and it still has a maintenance season.
- Think about when your different crops grow and when they keep your farmers busy. At the beginning of a crop season, farmers are busy planting crops, and at the end, they are busy harvesting them. Because of this, you want to make sure that your farmers don’t have too many tasks that conflict with each other across all of your fields at any given time.
- Plan to let your animals graze on your fields while grains or root vegetables are growing. This will make the fields more fertile and give your animals food. The area for animals to graze is 10×10, so it’s best to make sure that your fields are all at least that size. Keep in mind that as of patch 0, you can no longer graze on clover. 7. 5.
- Each crop has a preferred soil mix, so you want to plant crops that like soils that are similar (or very similar) to their own in the same fields.
- It’s not necessary to do more than one field maintenance season every three years for crops that are good at keeping weeds down. Instead, you can focus on clover seasons to keep the fertility high. Also, crops that don’t do a good job of keeping weeds down will usually need two seasons of field maintenance every three years.
- Rockiness: Resilience is only important if you plan to plant right away after your field is built, because you can get the rockiness down to 0 very quickly by only maintaining the field for the first year or two. After that, it will stay low with very little maintenance.
- Because farmers would rather build a new field than work on an existing one, you might miss a few harvests while the new field is being set up. You can get around this by stopping work on the new field during planting and harvest times (clover season is great because there’s no harvest) and starting work again when the plants start to grow.
- No matter how big or small your field is, adding compost will always make it more fertile. This makes using compost on large fields way more efficient. If you have enough workers, use the most field expansions possible to get even more of this benefit.
The Best Crop Rotations In Farthest Frontier! + Tips
FAQ
What is the best sequence of crop rotation?
Here is a traditional three year rotation plan where potatoes and brassicas are important crops: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?
There is a chart that shows which vegetables grow well with others. The vegetables that grow well with cabbage are beets, celery, chard, lettuce, spinach, onions, and carrots. The vegetables that grow well with corn are climbing beans, cucumber, marjoram, peas, pumpkins, squash, sunflowers, and zucchini.
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. Don’t plant vegetables from the same plant family in the same area more than three to four years. This is the best way to rotate crops.
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. Crop Yield is how much of a Crop you can expect to get. You don’t have to worry about watering Crops, but you do have to worry about 8 other things for each Crop: 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.