Will the game ever have a companion planting or neighbor-bonus feature where plants grow better next to specific other plants?

[ijkdenem]

what i am talking about is how some plants grown next to others ACTIVELY enrich the soil and help those other plants of certain species if planted nearby.

in other words.

Companion Planting is the technique of planting different crops in the same tiles, usually to meet each other's Nutrient needs so that little or no fertilization is required, but possibly to require just a single nutrient. 

by doing this it would help save on fertilizer costs and boost crop yields. 

sorta like on DON'T STARVE TOGETHER.

even crop pairs would be a cool feature. no need to go into the 3-4 combos. just 2 would be awesome as it is.

[Demoncyborg]

ooh just like the three sisters!

even if it isn't directly on top, would be neat to have certain crops boost soil nutrients they're on or adjacent.

Edited October 8 by Demoncyborg

[Twad]

As DemonCyborg said, something like the Three sisters would be neat.

Productive and sustainable!

That and/or being able to use mushroom spores so their mycelium can do something similar. Like the dirt layer under the farm block become mycelium, and give a bonus to farm blocks in its range or just above. Some mushrrom work better with XYZ specific crop, or maybe provide more of a specific nutrient. Or boost nutrient regeneration.

Anything to make farming more fun and interesting really.

 

[Professor Dragon]

I like the idea - for a bit of fun. And because it is reflective of some real world practices.
Take the worms that already exist for fishing, and have them give a slight soil fertility boost also. (Maybe slowly raise soil fertility a tier, given addition of other items.)

One issue that would need to be addressed though is that farming is already overpowered, as far as food production is concerned.
Adding another buff like companion planting would make food production even more trivial.
So there would need to be a way to balance early game progression ("Oh no! I'm starving!") versus later game farming ("What am I going to do with all of this food? I'm already feeding animals, rot, a village, traders and an entire alcohol industry!") 

Seems to be a great candidate for a mod in the meantime.

[ijkdenem]

well it could be a feature that can be switched on/off like the underground farming or the soil stability. still i think it would be a great addition to the game even if its only for paired crops and no more than that.

[V1ncent]

22 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

I like the idea - for a bit of fun. And because it is reflective of some real world practices.
Take the worms that already exist for fishing, and have them give a slight soil fertility boost also. (Maybe slowly raise soil fertility a tier, given addition of other items.)

For one second, I was like "isn't the fertility boost with worm already there", then I realize that is the mod Primitive Survival

22 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

One issue that would need to be addressed though is that farming is already overpowered, as far as food production is concerned.
Adding another buff like companion planting would make food production even more trivial.
So there would need to be a way to balance early game progression ("Oh no! I'm starving!") versus later game farming ("What am I going to do with all of this food? I'm already feeding animals, rot, a village, traders and an entire alcohol industry!") 

Seems to be a great candidate for a mod in the meantime.

Talking about the "overpowered" farming, tbh, the farming being so powerful is why humans chose a relatively stable form of agriculture rather than hunting and gathering. And the current farming power is based on scale effect and without noticable natural disasters to harass the exponetial planting area. Other factors like irrigation and hydrology, pests and diseases, are hardly simulated in the game. And like you said, the game also has to consider the harsh beginning for the new player, and may not put detailed land reclamation process as an obstacle. These are real farming challenges that may not be easily implemented and even implemented, become interesting.