The equestrian center's manual
1.5 - Agriculture and pastures
1.5.2 - Land
You will have to purchase meadows from the equestrian center store. These meadows will be used as pasture for your boarders, and to develop some agricultural activity, which is an important source of income. Meadows sold at the store have different land surfaces.
Fertility is crucial as it will determine the yield of your crops. It will be taken into account for the quality of your meadows displayed on your equestrian center page, and horses put out in a more fertile meadow will eat more free fodder. The latter point will have consequences on the spending of the owners who board their horses at your equestrian center.
Whether you choose to turn a meadow into a pasture, grow crops or breed cows, it will lose fertility when used. You can increase its fertility by leaving it fallow.
A meadow gains 1% fertility per day of fallow land in spring and fall, 3% in summer and 0.2% in winter. Therefore, fallow land has very low fertility rates in winter.
1.5.3 - Pastures for the boarders
Your pasture land area must be equal to the number of boxes in order to meet the needs of the horses boarded in your equestrian center. For instance, a center with 10 boxes must have a pasture land area of at least 10. It is always a good idea to have several meadows available so that you can grow crops or leave one or more fallow to allow the soil to recover and regain fertility.
1.5.4 - Agriculture
You can have 6 meadows to grow crops or breed cows at any time, whatever the size of your equestrian center or meadow. Crop availability and yield depend on the season.
If you have a greenhouse, you can sow the seeds you want at all seasons without limits other than the limitation of crops to 6 meadows, taking into account that the greenhouse counts as a meadow. However, you can't grow apples or passes in the greenhouse.
A greenhouse's wear increases by 1% per day when it is being used to grow crop.
A icon is visible next to a greenhouse's wear and can be used to repair it. The cost of repairing a greenhouse depends on the greenhouse's level of wear and its size. If you do not repair your greenhouse, it will become unusable upon reaching 100% wear and the current crop is lost. You can repair a greenhouse at any time in order to keep using it.
1.5.5 - Available crops
Seed | Plantation season | Crop growing duration | Harvest | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Carrot seeds | Spring | 9 days | Carrot | |
Wheat seeds | Summer | 9 days | Wheat bran Straw | |
Oat seeds | Spring | 11 days | Oats | |
Pass seeds | Fall | 30 days | Pass | |
Apple seeds | Fall | A harvest every Fall | Apple | |
Flax seeds | Spring | 8 days | Flax | |
Alfalfa seeds | Summer | 7 days | Fodder |
During wintertime, you can't grow anything unless you own a greenhouse. If you do, you will be able to grow anything you like, except for apples and passes.
To make money, you can resell your crops at the store.
You can also:
- make carrots, oats, and fodder available to your boarders in order to receive more prestige
- use wheat bran and apples to create mashes
- use straw and flax bedding in your boxes
To use a meadow to grow crops:
- go to the equestrian center's store to buy the seeds and fertilizers you want to use
- go to the meadows page
- if the meadow is already in pasture, click on "Fallow", then on "Crop"
- select the seeds and fertilizers for this meadow
- validate, the meadow is now ready to grow crops!
Note that the use of fertilizer will reduce the number of days to maturity.
Once the harvest is over, the meadow will lie fallow to let the ground rest. You can then use this meadow to grow crops again, or for pasturing horses boarded at the equestrian center.
1.5.6 - Raising cows
You can also raise cows on your meadows and use them to obtain leather. The number of meadows on which you can raise cows or grow crops is restricted to 6. Thus, if you already have 4 meadows or greenhouses currently growing crops, for example, you can dedicate no more than 2 meadows to raising cows.
As is the case with horses, cows require one hectare each. A small meadow is 5 hectares large and can support 5 cows.
When raising cows, you can obtain leather after 30 days. The meadow then turns fallow and you can start raising cows again.
There are two types of cows, each with a specific leather yield.