Conservation Agriculture v 1.0.1.7

This mod makes regenerative farming practices more beneficial.

It adds the following features:
– Grass crops, grain crops and root crops can be used as cover crops now.
– If cover crops have grown enough, they can be terminated with rollers, mulchers, cultivators and direct seeders.
– Terminating cover crops will fertilize the field (Precision Farming is supported, too) and prevent weeding until after the next harvest.
– Rolling or mulching cover crops will also grant a mulch bonus.
– When terminating cover crops, a thin layer of grass can be added to simulate the presence of biomatter (visual effect only, enabled by default).
– Chopping straw while harvesting will fertilize the field, so it is a more meaningful alternative to baling.
– Direct seeders get an option to allow field creation.
– Many modded crops are supported automatically.
– Most effects can be turned on or off in the settings (only admins can do this in multiplayer).
– Different fertilization strategies for base game and different fertilization amounts for Precision Farming.

The mod is related to real life farming in the following ways:

The mod is built around the tree principles of Conservation Agriculture (CA):

1. Minimum mechanical soil disturbance (i.e. no tillage)
2. Permanent soil organic cover (with crop residues and/or cover crops)
3. Species diversification (through proper crop rotation)
(Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

The theory is that any system which respects these three principles is sustainable long-term, since it builds soil over time.
The approach has the potential to solve soil erosion and nutrient runoff issues which in turn leads to less additional fertilizer being required.
Regenerative farming is a complex topic, however, and there are many variations and factors which need to be considered, so it can’t be easily translated into a simulation game.

This mod therefore uses nitrogen levels and the mulching bonus in order to provide at least some kind of reward to the player for maintaining these principles.
It also tries to offer many configuration options so everyone can adjust it to what they believe is most realistic.

The mod uses measures to reduce the likelyhood of mod conflicts, but these can never be fully excluded.
Special thanks to Matthias, FS Gentleman and Cookie Cat for help and ideas provided to make this mod possible.

Version 1.0.1.7:
* Fixed an issue where weed suppression would cause lua errors on mod maps with incomplete fruit types