berrybush Berry bush rework confuses me.

[Calmest_of_lakes]

So, I created a vineyard on medium fertility soil, with a ton of berry cuttings, and later on in the year, I come and see that the bushes are... struggling? The hud shows that their nutrient levels are at around 25%, so I break one bush to take a look at the soil and see that it has reverted to low fertility soil. What gives? I thought only the nutrient levels would go down, not degrade the soil itself. The hud also doesn't have text explaining what needs to be done to give the berries some TLC, so I'm not sure how I would be supposed to figure this out without looking in the forums, or consulting a guide.

How do I bring the berry bushes back to a healthy state? 

[MKMoose]

3 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

What gives?

Great question. There is no answer, only guessing and conjecture.

 

3 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

How do I bring the berry bushes back to a healthy state? 

Fertilize it. Any fertilizer works. About one piece per year for the first four years will generally work well enough. Nutrient consumption falls off over time, so you won't have to keep fertilizing in long-term worlds. It's currently strictly optimal to only use one fertilizer type per bush, or two if you want to keep it in the "bountiful" state.

 

Update: with rc.3 now released, soil doesn't get downgraded, and it seems that medium fertility soil will get bushes to start off in the "healthy" state at 50% nutrients, greatly reducing the need to fertilize the bushes.

Edited March 18 by MKMoose
Rc.3 has released.

[DUCATISLO]

berry bushes are fine im just kinda annoyed with the whole fertilizer stuff but eh

[Calmest_of_lakes]

10 hours ago, MKMoose said:

soil doesn't get downgraded,

I wonder why this was the case to begin with.

So all I need to do is fertilize with bonemeal, compost, or potash? 

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

compost, or potash

Sacrilege! Potash should never touch anything but your sacred flax growing soil! I think they said it was just bonemeal, but I haven't confirmed.

[LadyWYT]

56 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

I think they said it was just bonemeal, but I haven't confirmed.

Any fertilizer will work, I believe, but bonemeal is the prevalent suggestion since it's easy to acquire but isn't otherwise very useful. Emphasis added in quote.

Quote

Berry bushes require fertilization or they will stop bearing fruit. Berry bush nutrient use tapers off by 15% per year (resulting in about 5% use after 20 years). Some bone meal each year should be enough to give you a decent harvest

 

[Chrondeath]

My understanding, though it's all secondhand information, is that the berry bush health checks are thresholds checking against total nutrition across all three types.  The only specific threshold number I've heard is that Bountiful requires 240% total, which would suggest to reach that requires--long-term, at least--fertilizing all three nutrients (assuming the bushes can't go over 100% in any one nutrient).  I don't know what the threshold between Struggling and Healthy is; I assume a pure-Bonemeal diet at least keeps them off Barren though.