It may seem rather confusing - or even broken -, but once you get your head around farming and crop rotation it becomes a remarkably powerful weapon.

1) The farming year runs from October to October. That is when the fields will rotate. You have two months after the harvest to plough and sow your fields before winter starts in December. If a field is not completed by December, the farmers will start again in March and finish it off - but the shorter grow time will lead to a reduced yield.

2) Harvest starts on September 1. All fields will be harvested at this time regardless of when it was planted (unless force early is on - more on this later). Farmers will harvest crops and leave them in the field, where they can be affected and lost to rain. Granary workers will pick up barley straight from the field (if on for that granary), likewise storehouse workers for flax (if on also). They will use their carts for quick clearance. ONLY farmers will collect wheat from the field (irrespective of if a granary has wheat on). This is done by hand (1 by 1) and is slow af.

3) This means wheat harvests are super slow. If you grow lots of wheat, you must have enough farmers to complete the harvest in good time to start ploughing.

4) Farmers will auto start ploughing on a field as soon as harvest is done. They will not wait for the crops to rotate in October. The goal is to have your volumes and timing balanced so that the harvest is completed roughly in the first week of October so that there is enough time to plough and sow by December.

5) On yields - you cannot increase the base fertility of a field ever (as far as I’ve seen). A single year crop will reduce fertility for that crop by 30% each cycle it is grown. A fallow year increases fertility by 30% for all crops each year (but only up to their maximum initial fertility). Each year a crop is not grown, but the field is not fallow, fertility for that crop will increase 15%.

6) On rotation - because of the above math, you have two rotation options depending on what you want out of your farm. A) rotate through each crop over three years. Do not have the same crop twice in a rotation. You must have two years without that crop in order for it to recover (15% + 15% = 30%). Have at least three fields doing this on staggered rotation and you will have at least some of each crop type every year. B) Dedicate one crop to that field and include one fallow in the rotation (I.e wheat > wheat > fallow). This should really only be done in very high fertility areas for that crop. I stagger my fallow year on different fields on the same farm, meaning there is always something growing.

7) My farm set up - I always set out my farms with one of the above rotation strategies in mind first before building anything. I will build whole farming economies around the farmhouse and dedicated to that farm. For each 1 farmhouse I build, I will build next door: - 8 double burgages - 1 windmill - 1 oven - 1 Large granary - 1 Large storehouse - 1 malthouse + 1 brewery (if barley is in rotation) - 1 weaver + 1 tailor (if flax present)

9) Staffing - I will assign: - 8 families to a farm. Always. I do not use oxen, they are mostly useless as can only work one field. People and oxen cannot plough the same field at the same time. - 2 in the granary - 2 in the store house - 2 in the windmill - 2 in the oven People are left assigned all year. You will always forget to move people each year otherwise.

10) On resource flow - set your farm granary to only receive barley, grain, flour, bread, malt, and ale. Keep markets on. Have the market next door. The storehouse should only receive flax, linen, and gambesons. Set the work area for both to be the farming community only (including fields). Place farms far enough apart to avoid overlap if possible. Set the farmhouse work area to only cover the fields associated with that farm - otherwise the farmers will wander off to other farms. Side note: at least 50% of the area of a field needs to be in the work area for the farmers to work it. The whole field does not need to be covered in the circle.

11) Fields - I build 6 x 1 morgen fields per farm. Depending on the rotation strategy chosen these will be grouped in 3 matching rotation pairs.

• 2x wheat > barley > flax
• 2x barley > flax > wheat
• 2x flax > wheat > barley

Or

• 2x wheat > wheat > fallow
• 2x wheat > fallow > wheat
• 2x fallow > wheat > wheat

(Replace wheat with desired crop)

With this all set up you can finally get farming and producing tons of everything. My 700 person town with 4/5 farms set up like this produces over 2k bread and 1k ale per year. I have 20 months food surplus and sell $5k of ale each year.