Realistic Soil & Fertilizer

Enhance your farming experience with the Realistic Soil & Fertilizer Mod. This mod adds meaningful depth to your farming operations without overwhelming complexity. Each field has its own unique soil health, including factors like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, organic matter, and pH, which change based on your crops, applications, and weather. Proper soil management leads to more efficient farming, while neglect results in reduced yields.

Soil Nutrients

Each field independently tracks five key values:

• Nitrogen (N): Depletes heavily from most crops, especially corn and wheat.
• Phosphorus (P): Depletes more slowly, crucial for root crops.
• Potassium (K): Lost in large quantities with high-yield harvests.
• Organic Matter (OM): Improves long-term fertility; built up with manure and compost.
• pH: Affects nutrient absorption; adjusted with lime and gypsum.

Crops extract different amounts of each nutrient, and fallow fields recover slowly on their own.

Fertilizer Types

This mod supports all major fertilizer types from the base game and common mods:

• Synthetic:
  • Liquid Fertilizer: Balanced N/P/K, quick uptake.
  • Solid Fertilizer: Higher phosphorus, standard cost.
  • Digestate: Biogas byproduct, strong nitrogen and potassium.
• Organic:
  • Manure: Slow-release, builds organic matter.
  • Slurry: Liquid organic, high in potassium.
  • Compost: Excellent organic matter boost.
  • Biosolids: Good all-around organic option.
  • Chicken Manure: Concentrated nutrients, builds organic matter.
  • Pelletized Manure: Processed for easier application.
• pH Management:
  • Lime: Raises pH significantly.
  • Liquid Lime: Gentler than dry lime.
  • Gypsum: Stabilizes pH, improves soil structure.

Each fertilizer type has realistic nutrient profiles with appropriate application rates in metric or imperial units.

Sprayer Rate Control

Manage fertilizer application with precision:

• Rate Up / Rate Down keybindings for on-the-fly adjustments.
• Auto-Rate mode sets application based on field depletion.
• Rate persists per vehicle, maintaining settings when exiting.

HUD

A real-time soil panel displays current field nutrient levels:

• 6 position presets and a draggable custom position.
• 4 color themes, 3 font sizes, and 5 transparency levels.
• Compact mode for smaller displays.
• Toggle HUD on/off with a keybinding.
• HUD settings are per-player and don't affect others in multiplayer.

A full Soil Report is available via keybinding, providing a detailed field breakdown.

Settings

All settings are accessible in-game under Soil & Fertilizer in the menu. In multiplayer, gameplay settings are admin-controlled, while HUD/display settings are per-player.

Toggleable Systems:

• Fertility system, nutrient cycles, fertilizer costs.
• Seasonal and rain effects, plowing bonus, Auto-Rate Control.
• Notifications for low nutrient warnings.

Difficulty Levels:

• Simple: Reduced depletion, lower costs, forgiving.
• Realistic: Balanced, standard rates (default).
• Hardcore: Rapid depletion, higher costs, no room for neglect.

Switch units between metric (kg/ha) and imperial (lb/ac) per player.

Precision Farming Compatibility

If the official Precision Farming DLC is active, this mod enters read-only mode to prevent conflicts.

Multiplayer

Fully supported with server-controlled gameplay settings and per-player HUD preferences. Field soil data syncs to all clients, and new players receive a full state sync upon joining.

Console Commands

Use the developer console (tilde key) to access commands like SoilEnable, SoilDisable, SoilSetDifficulty, SoilFieldInfo, and more.

Compatibility

Compatible with all maps, vehicles, sprayers, and crop rotation mods. No known conflicts with other mods. Save game compatible.

Installation

Extract the zip into your mods folder and configure in-game under Soil & Fertilizer in the settings menu.