First off, I wanted to say that I love your game! The detail you spent on so many aspects is great and make for an in-depth experience and you still keep adding more to the game which also shows your dedication. And the cherry on the cake is your ongoing modsupport. Thus, I would like to thank you for such a great game!
Now to my suggestion;
One of my hobbies is grafting.
I have grafted several trees myself by now and think I have a bit of first-hand experience in this field (At least when it comes to Apples, Pears, Prunes and their derivates and cherries).
I would really love if you could rework grafting for Vintage Story, as there would be so much more potential (especially judging from the latest additions to Berrybushes).
So why do we even graft?
Most of our fruit trees are rather random in their offspring (only few varieties of fruits have rather stable offspring. Prunes, peaches and the like seem to be rather constant on the other hand, having mostly just minor changes in their offspring)
To get several trees of the same variety, you cannot simply put e.g., an Appleseed in the ground. You have to graft branches of the desired variety onto a fitting rootstock.
What I find unrealistic is that ingame a Branch of a Fruit tree is put in the ground to take root. That does not work for most fruit trees (nowadays they put long branches in the ground while still attached to the mother tree but that seems to be a rather late technique and I suppose it involves some chemicals to make roots sprouting).
How did they get the rootstock back then?
Normally they would go and search either for wild apple trees (for example grown from thrown away apple cores) or you would put seeds in the ground.
If you sow them yourself, you would have to choose the rootstock after one to two years for its properties:
-many roots and good growth would make for a Fruit tree that gets big and old but starts to bear fruit late
-few roots and less growth would make for smaller trees that do not live as long but start bearing fruit earlier. (With the extreme becoming rootstocks for cordons that need stabilization for their whole life, as the roots would not grow properly, but bear much more fruit for their size)
And of course, everything between.
For some sorts of fruit, you could use Bushes like Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna or laevigata; e.g., slow growing rootstock for pears, but not all varieties of pears would work and the success rate is lower) or Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa; could be used as slow growing rootstock for all prunidae, but had the problem of rootsuckers and also lowered success rate).
How was the grafting done from the Middle Ages to about 200-150 years ago?
Normally you would split the rootstock with a special tool, having a long blade on one side, being dull on the other and having a nose on the far end.
You would drive the blade into the rootstock for a few cm’s with a hammer, then get it out again and put the nose in the cut. Turning the tool now opens the cut in which you insert the prepared graft (they are cut on two sides, so they look somewhat like a chisel. Depending on size of the rootstock you insert one or two grafts). Then turn the tool again, the cut closes and presses the graft in place. Now you put raffia ties (back then most likely reedties made from Typha latifolia or I also read about Sparganium erectum (both less suitable, maybe lowering successrate), or yarn made from limetree liber (Tilia cordata or platyphyllos). Other forms of yarn would also be possible but seemingly were too expensive and were used for clothing instead.
Afterwards you would cover all open wounds with some self-made grafting wax with plenty of recipes (I could deliver some of such recipes.
This method was rather brutal and opened many spots for bacteria and fungi to attack the young tree, leading to more refined methods around the 1800’s.
One more method I would suggest for the later stages of the game is copulating.
Graft and rootstock have to be same sized, then you apply a slanted cut to both, in the best case both wounds perfectly fitting onto each other. Then bind them again and use grafting wax.
But for this you need a very sharp knife, only being sharpened on one side. It also is a bit more challenging on the grafter.
How did they breed fruit tree varieties?
Up until somewhen mid 1800’s they would just throw the cores or stones etc. away or sow them intentionally meaning over the centuries “wild” trees were growing everywhere. From those a minor fraction would have desired traits (big fruits, not bitter, and not hard). Most were rather small and bitter, often with hard fruits, only consumable after cooking or being frozen.
And by taking grafts from the desirable trees our great variety of fruit trees came, all of them being technically just a clone of the original trees.
How could this be adopted to vintage story?
First of all, the rootstock: let fruits also give seeds after consuming (or maybe in the fruit mash after pressing, “sowing” the mash)
Just like the berry bushes they would have traits, but one for the rootsystem and one for the fruit.
The rootsystem give you info about how the tree could be used as a rootstock and you get the info after uprooting it.
The fruit info gives you info about the fruit you get from the tree and how suitable it is for grafts (meaning if it has favourable traits). In general the ratio should be that most fruits have bad traits (I think in reality it is about 1 tree out of 10000 has desirable traits for us humans). So, you could venture out to find good grafts or you decide to sow trees and wait for them to mature if they have good traits.
The successrate of grafting would be dependent on different factors:
-The kind of fruit (e.g., Apple and Pear are rather easy to graft, going over prunes to peaches to cherries, while walnut is one of the hardest.)
-The method used
-the sharpness of the knife
-the skill of the grafter (mostly influencing the cut lines, meaning good alignment of the cambium (green stuff under the bark) gives better rate of success)
-hygiene (e.g., not tapping on the wounds)
-how tense the binding is (the tenser the better; you say a bad cut can be fixed by a good binding)
-when in the year you cut the graft (it still has to be dormant. In reality you gotta cut all stone fruits rather early (around January maybe February) because they start pumping power in the branches rather early. Pears can be cut for longer in the year while apples are suitable the longest.)
-how you store the graft until you use it
There are also interesting types of transporting and storing grafts in history.
As temperature is a core thing in the culture of fruit trees, resistance to cold or heat could also be traits for rootstock and graft. This way you might by accident find an apple suitable for very cold climates that does not freeze to death in the harsh northern winters and combine it with a rootstock having the same trait, having a northern fruit tree).
One last nice to have would be the ability to name varieties of fruit that you discover, be it on your journeys or at home growing new trees from seeds.
Another interesting addition would be other wild fruit trees, like European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), whitty pear (Sorbus domestica) and checker tree (Sorbus torminalis). Sorbus aucuparia for example is one of the few fruit trees that could grow in the northern regions of Scandinavia and has higher vitamin C amounts than lemons, being also called lemon of the north.
Whitty pear is used for refining whine in warmer Whine regions and checker tree is used e.g. for liquor distillation.
Adding cordons to the game would also be an interesting thing. You could apply a general +5°C bonus for it being close to a building that keeps warmth and is heated from the inside. With the low growth rootstock, you could make cordon trees a thing. Them facing south could increase that bonus and having them inside of four walls with no roof would give the most bonus as they are then protected from cold wind and harsher weather.
Another interesting addition in the same direction would be whine and whineyards.
As you graft whine aswell it would be rather fitting and great for warmer climates. It would be cool if it would profit from a southern oriented hillside.
In summary I think this would add a whole new dimension to the game taking the same line as the berry bush upgrade.
There would be more types of grafting and also more plants being grafted (e.g. roses) but I think this would make a good middle ground between gain and work.
If you would be interested in the idea and need visual examples or more info just reach out and I will be happy to supply you those.
Thanks for your time in advance!
Best regards
