crops and grass in winter

[trampek]

hello 

is it normal for those to grow in winter ?

i didnt play for year or so but im pretty sure when there was winter we got problem with grass for campfire ... now on 1.21 we play and there is tons of grass everywhere but also when i dig or put some fresh dirt grass grows on it pretty soon when there is -30C 

didnt think about it much until today when i found wild rye growing in january at -25C and also i found a lot of flax when i went far away but i thought it just generate this way but this rye is close and 100% new grow

is that bug or new feature ? kinda breaking immersion for me 

[Maelstrom]

Cultivated crops will not grow in winter (unless in a green house and temp is above 0) and will likely succumb to the cold temps and die. 

Grass doesn't grow.  It spawns.  And will do so on empty farmland or acceptable dirt block during winter regardless of temp.

Wild crops do not grow.  Period.   No matter the season.   Like grass, wild crops spawn when terrain is generated and unlike cultivated crops, will not suffer from the cold.

These are not bugs at this time.

Edited September 3, 2025 by Maelstrom

[trampek]

something doesnt work for me then as near my base in places generated long ago now in winter some stage 1 rye spawned 

or could it be that it is same place i harvested it before and now mayby in sunny day temperature was -10 or something like that and it respawned ? 

[trampek]

when i think about this more there is one more wierd thing about grass in my game - place i did remove grass with scythe in summer is empty forever ... when i was doing that i thought for moment that grass respawn there too but now much later there is still no grass there

[Maelstrom]

Once the dirt block is a solid green, removing grass will remove the grass... permanently.   The only time grass will regrow is if you trim it so that a little bit of tall grass still shows on the block.

As for wild crops respawning?   They don't.   You probably missed seeing it earlier.

[Professor Dragon]

On 9/4/2025 at 4:25 AM, trampek said:

when i think about this more there is one more wierd thing about grass in my game - place i did remove grass with scythe in summer is empty forever ... when i was doing that i thought for moment that grass respawn there too but now much later there is still no grass there

Use "F" on the scythe and there are two settings - a bit like the Pro Pick.

One removes grass forever as a decorating option, the other cuts grass short and allows it to be a renewable resource.

Break the dirt and replace it and it will go back to default growing of grass. 

On 9/4/2025 at 4:02 AM, Maelstrom said:

Wild crops do not grow.  Period.   No matter the season.   Like grass, wild crops spawn when terrain is generated and unlike cultivated crops, will not suffer from the cold.

Just to tidy up your phrasing so as not to confuse people, although I know what you meant.

• Wild crops are CREATED at world generation only, and then never spawn again.
• Wild crops DO go through a repeated GROWTH CYCLE. Seedling to mature and back again.

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Farming
" Wild crops will grow even when their chunks are not loaded, and their growth is not influenced by temperature. However, once they are fully grown, they will revert to their first stage if they are not harvested before the next growth tick."

Edited September 4, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[Maelstrom]

3 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

• Wild crops DO go through a repeated GROWTH CYCLE. Seedling to mature and back again.

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Farming
" Wild crops will grow even when their chunks are not loaded, and their growth is not influenced by temperature. However, once they are fully grown, they will revert to their first stage if they are not harvested before the next growth tick."

What in game proof do you have that wild crops grow?  In 1.14 or so they would grow at geologic speeds, i.e. barely at all (like one growth stage per season at best).  Info on the wiki is notoriously out of date if it is not still correct, soooo...   What in game proof do you have of wild crop growth?

[Professor Dragon]

6 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

What in game proof do you have that wild crops grow?  In 1.14 or so they would grow at geologic speeds, i.e. barely at all (like one growth stage per season at best).  Info on the wiki is notoriously out of date if it is not still correct, soooo...   What in game proof do you have of wild crop growth?

I might be just terribly unobservant and mis-remembering things, but I make regular trips back and forth between traders over the in-game years, and sometimes there are mature crops there when I thought there were none before. I tend to pick wild mature crops, even though I don't need to anymore.

Of course, I might just not noticed they were mature before, or didn't have inventory space, or didn't pick them for whatever reason. That's all possible.

I'll keep an eye out for some, mark it on the map with growth state, and come back to you later. 

EDIT
Here you go. You've got your own dedicated carrot patch in my primary world now.
It is definitely off the beaten path, so it won't be constantly updated by my presence.

And now . . . we wait.

 

Edited September 5, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[trampek]

i know that F mode, just so i thought remove grass is "for now" not forever and it will regrow some day 

but if i remove dirt and place it again, will it regrow then ? 

 

Edited September 5, 2025 by trampek

[Professor Dragon]

2 hours ago, trampek said:

i know that F mode, just so i thought remove grass is "for now" not forever and it will regrow some day 

but if i remove dirt and place it again, will it regrow then ? 

 

Yes. Done that myself often.

[williams_482]

10 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

What in game proof do you have that wild crops grow?  In 1.14 or so they would grow at geologic speeds, i.e. barely at all (like one growth stage per season at best).  Info on the wiki is notoriously out of date if it is not still correct, soooo...   What in game proof do you have of wild crop growth?

I didn't keep detailed records for "proof", but yes, wild crops absolutely do slowly progress through their growth stages, and eventually revert from their maximum growth stage back to the first stage. I've actually seen a patch of wild rye revert from full to seedling before my eyes. I also made a regular habit of checking up on wild crops near my base and harvesting them only when they reached maturity, which did reliably happen. 

Do you always harvest wild crops when you find them, regardless of growth stage? 

[Professor Dragon]

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Do you always harvest wild crops when you find them, regardless of growth stage? 

Me personally? No. I only harvest them when mature. Otherwise, I'll just mark them on the map and continue. And by then I probably don't need them, so I just leave them there.

There are other players who like to harvest everything at any stage in the early game, in order to get seeds quicker and get farming up. 

[LadyWYT]

Yeah, can confirm that wild crops will mature, and keep cycling through growth stages after--I've seen mature crops revert to seedlings before my very eyes too(right before harvest, doh!). It is, however, a very slow process, if you're after seeds best to just pick all the crops in the patch instead of waiting on them to mature.

On 9/3/2025 at 12:17 PM, trampek said:

i didnt play for year or so but im pretty sure when there was winter we got problem with grass for campfire ... now on 1.21 we play and there is tons of grass everywhere but also when i dig or put some fresh dirt grass grows on it pretty soon when there is -30C 

didnt think about it much until today when i found wild rye growing in january at -25C and also i found a lot of flax when i went far away but i thought it just generate this way but this rye is close and 100% new grow

is that bug or new feature ? kinda breaking immersion for me 

As others have noted, crops don't grow unless it's above 0 C; otherwise they are dormant. If the weather gets too cold, the crops will take cold damage and eventually die. I will note that only applies to cultivated crops--wild crops are unaffected.

For grass, the grass plant itself won't grow back in winter if harvested. New grass will spawn on fallow farmland though, and grass will grow on bare dirt blocks, so that's likely what's happening here. And as @Professor Dragon noted, the scythe has two different modes for cutting grass: the harvest mode will harvest the grass but leave the plant intact so it can grow back later, while the cut mode will destroy the base plant so the grass won't grow back.

[Steel General]

I suspect that when wild crops are broken and don't drop seeds they remain on the block at a growth stage 'zero', making them invisible for a while.

It's the best explanation I have for why I find them again after I definitely broke them all.

[Echo Weaver]

Wild crops do mature, but at least in 1.19, they didn't seem to progress on any kind of schedule -- having the block loaded might have been a factor. In my first season of my first game, I marked all the wild crops for harvest when they matured. Some didn't mature the entire growing season, though many did. It was a contributor to my near-starvation that winter, since I didn't plant enough seeds early enough. 

So I'd advise harvesting immature crops for the seeds at the very beginning. 

These days I'm making my first steel on that same game, and I mostly just harvest mature flax when I find it because that's always useful. Food production is far beyond filling our needs.

[Maelstrom]

14 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

I might be just terribly unobservant and mis-remembering things, but I make regular trips back and forth between traders over the in-game years, and sometimes there are mature crops there when I thought there were none before. I tend to pick wild mature crops, even though I don't need to anymore.

Of course, I might just not noticed they were mature before, or didn't have inventory space, or didn't pick them for whatever reason. That's all possible.

I'll keep an eye out for some, mark it on the map with growth state, and come back to you later. 

EDIT
Here you go. You've got your own dedicated carrot patch in my primary world now.
It is definitely off the beaten path, so it won't be constantly updated by my presence.

And now . . . we wait.

 

And wait and wait and wait and wait.  That carrot patch will be stage 5 until you decide to harvest it.  If you want another year it might advance to stage 6, but doubtful.

Watch this series to see how geologically slow wild crops grow.   Granted it's 1.14.8, but no changes have been made since this.

 

[Maelstrom]

9 hours ago, williams_482 said:

I didn't keep detailed records for "proof", but yes, wild crops absolutely do slowly progress through their growth stages, and eventually revert from their maximum growth stage back to the first stage. I've actually seen a patch of wild rye revert from full to seedling before my eyes. I also made a regular habit of checking up on wild crops near my base and harvesting them only when they reached maturity, which did reliably happen. 

Do you always harvest wild crops when you find them, regardless of growth stage? 

Thanks for the confirmation that it is slow progress.  

Yes, I harvest on sight as I will get much more benefit should it drop a seed.  Out of all the immature crops I harvest it's much more beneficial to harvest than to wait for maturity.  I get a stack of seeds by the time June ends (12 day months) which wouldn't happen if I don't.