Gaining extra Redwood wood

[wildforester]

When planting Redwoods, clearing an area underneath the saplings will allow some more wood to generate. The area can be cleared like so:

1. The blocks south, east, and southeast of the dirt upon which the sapling is planted.
2. A 2x2 area underneath the dirt upon which the sapling is planted that extends to the south and east.

In total you can gain 7 more Redwood wood. Enjoy!

[Maelstrom]

Unfortunately, a bigger problem (partially solved by this) is that redwoods drop a ridiculously small number of seeds.

[wildforester]

Unfortunate indeed, I was trying to see if there’s a way to force trees to grow taller, I’m not sure it’s possible. Best thing is to space your trees sufficiently and shear every leave

[Maelstrom]

Someone made a pretty good mod that increases seed drop rates to an acceptable level for me.  I plant an obscene amount of pine trees to turn into charcoal since I run 2 or 4 steel factories simultaneously.  When each one takes a few stacks of charcoal for 16 ingots... weeeellll...  One needs a LOT of charcoal.  Plus getting an average of one.AlmostNothing larch seed per tree is very frustrating!

[V1ncent]

Useful trick!

The frustration with the seed rate is that some trees like ebony, redwood and/or larch just have abysimal drop rate compared with common trees like maple, pine and oak. In addtion, redwood and larch have too few leaves per tree to even trigger enough drop.

All in all, it is ok to have mere maple and oak if one need logs and firewoods, but for a horder like me, that's lackluster.

[Maelstrom]

Given the amount of lumber needed for large builds, I grieve for those builders of massive projects that do so in survival and want to use copious amounts of those rare woods.

[Thorfinn]

I cannot imagine a stretch goal build that would clear out all the redwood from a single decent-sized stand. Ebony and purpleheart, yeah, since they don't appear as forests, but redwood?

[Maelstrom]

How about the situation where someone spawns far from the lattitudes that redwoods grow in?  It makes sense to harvest some seeds to take home to then create a self-sustaining tree farm.

[Thorfinn]

*Shrug*. A vanity build is supposed to be a challenge. If it weren't, it wouldn't be much of a vanity build. It would be like complaining about how hard it was to find enough suevite or kimberlite to build a Tower of Babylon.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn

[StCatharines]

43 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

How about the situation where someone spawns far from the lattitudes that redwoods grow in?  It makes sense to harvest some seeds to take home to then create a self-sustaining tree farm.

Then, if not using Whole Lotta Tree Seeds, use ladders and shears and attack the heck out of the redwoods. There are no police in VS, so no one will come arrest you for the monumental defoliation. 

If you aren't up for either of those options, well... it's like Thorfinn said. Wood is wood is wood, as far as everything but ebony and purpleheart go. Those create better crates and give less firewood, but otherwise... wood is wood. The rest is aesthetics.

Mind you, I absolutely tend to trek the 20-30,000 blocks south it takes to get ebony and purpleheart going, and on the way there/back I grab tons of redwood seeds. Larch, usually, as well... since there are always mountain ranges to cross between spawn and the tropics.

[Maelstrom]

30 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

*Shrug*. A vanity build is supposed to be a challenge. If it weren't, it wouldn't be much of a vanity build. It would be like complaining about how hard it was to find enough suevite or kimberlite to build a Tower of Babylon.

I'm not saying rarer trees should drop nearly the same number of seeds as oak or pine, but it would be good if ALL trees would drop at least one seed per tree regardless of the number of leaves. 

As an example; I recently grew three generations of larch starting with just 4 seeds for the initial planting thinking that would be sufficient to increase the my supply of future trees.  Seeds were planted to allow maximum leaf creation (6 or 7 blocks in between seeds) and all leaves were harvested.  At the end of the third generation I had 7 seeds.  Not exacly replacement population reproduction.  Would be nice if there was something a bit more realistic.  Like I said, I've found a solution that works for me and my limited gaming time, just kinda wish it didn't require a mod.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

That's certainly one possible solution. I'd prefer something more "realistic" -- seed drops greater than 1:1 when the tree grows at the midpoint of its climate and fertility and density and elevation and whatever else ranges. But the further away from ideal growing conditions, the fewer seed drops, just like IRL. North Dakota is not heavily forested because not many trees do well under those conditions. One should not expect to be able to maintain a redwood forest there.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Tom Cantine]

I wonder if the soil fertility underneath the seed has any impact on the size of the resulting tree, or the seed drop rate?

Edited May 9, 2025 by Tom Cantine

[wildforester]

I don't believe so, but climate may, I found an old message from Tyron stating that. It may have been in reference to trees generated at runtime rather than from sapling.

(Yeah, fertility makes no discernable difference)

Edited May 10, 2025 by wildforester

[Maelstrom]

Soil has absolutely NO impact on tree size or growth speed.  My current world tree farm is on a gravel plain and trees grow just as big and just as quickly as other more traditional soils.  Why gravel?  Don't have to trim the grass after felling trees PLUS it's easier to see those precious seeds.

[V1ncent]

On 5/12/2025 at 11:13 PM, Maelstrom said:

Soil has absolutely NO impact on tree size or growth speed.  My current world tree farm is on a gravel plain and trees grow just as big and just as quickly as other more traditional soils.  Why gravel?  Don't have to trim the grass after felling trees PLUS it's easier to see those precious seeds.

True. One can even plant a tree seed on Muddy Gravel, deep submerged under sea water. I tend to do so that the sticks and seeds are floating on the water surface and are easier to collect. Moving up in water is also much easier to cut the branches.

Edited May 13, 2025 by V1ncent

[Maelstrom]

Well there's an idear!

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Well there's an idear!

I thought so too, until winter comes around. I had not thought that through enough...

[Maelstrom]

Back to the salt mines in the gravel/sand plains for you!  

[wildforester]

I think this is becoming tree tricks, I didn’t even know saplings could be planted in water.

[Maelstrom]

yeah.  The original post topic has been exhausted so we pivoted to other tree topics.

[Feycat]

On 5/7/2025 at 9:45 PM, V1ncent said:

Useful trick!

The frustration with the seed rate is that some trees like ebony, redwood and/or larch just have abysimal drop rate compared with common trees like maple, pine and oak. In addtion, redwood and larch have too few leaves per tree to even trigger enough drop.

All in all, it is ok to have mere maple and oak if one need logs and firewoods, but for a horder like me, that's lackluster.

I've had a really easy time with larch seeds and with them spawning lots of leaves, like a christmas tree. Ebony, redwood and bald cypress are my difficulty.

[wildforester]

It makes sense when you look into the files of the game, the rates are much lower

(In fact you'll get something like 75% seeds back per tree with redwood and ebony, all others should be sustainable if not a little slow to build up a supply of)

Edited June 11, 2025 by wildforester

[Jonny]

Cool !