Guide to Botany

Your dream garden awaits!

Keeping it Green

When you click on a plant pot with an empty hand, you can check the plant to see how it is doing. Various indicators will appear when you do so, which describe the condition of the plant and soil - red indicators are bad, blue indicators are good:

Message	Meaning
The soil is completely dry.	The soil has run out of water. This will quickly kill the plant.
The plant is dying.	Maltreatment or harmful chemicals are killing the plant.
The soil looks rich and fertile.	Indicates the presence of compost in the soil. Remember, this dries out the soil quicker.
The plant glistens with good health!	Judicious compost and water use has resulted in a healthy plant!
The plant is flourishing!	The plant has extremely high health. Expect good harvests!
The plant looks strange...	You have managed to grow a rare mutant strain of plant. This could be good or bad!
Weeds have infested the soil.	This pot has been infested with a weed-type plant. You will have to take special measures to get rid of it.

In addition, you will receive a report of any chemical in the plant pot. Hopefully, there's at least water in it, but chemicals may also include stuff you've added like plant formula or compost. Some plants may produce nectar, a delightful treat for space bees. Harmful chemicals like toxic slurry may also appear, which usually require you to clean out the pot.

If you click and drag a plant pot onto yourself, you will completely clear out the pot. This not only empties any plant out of it, but completely cleans out all soil water, nutrients, everything. However, this will not work on pots infested with weeds! You must find a way to kill the weeds before emptying the pot if you want to get rid of them. Weeds will occasionally appear in unoccupied plant pots and may have various effects or even produce items, but remember - these are weeds and thus are useless and annoying at best, and downright dangerous at worst! Get rid of them when you can.

1986 Blue Ribbon Winner: Biggest Weed Harvest

Plants carry genes which affect various things relating to their growth and crops. While plant seeds are easy enough to come by from the dispenser or ordering crates of them from the Cargo Bay, these seeds start out completely plain and devoid of any particular genetic fluctuations. Every time a seed is planted, it mutates a bit - any seeds harvested from this plant will carry those genes, which will mutate again when planted - this way, you can breed plants for particular qualities. Genes can degrade as well as improve, however - so be careful not to end up with completely useless seeds which produce no crops, or result in plants that die instantly.

To get even more in-depth with planting you have the plant analyzer, which can scan a plant, fruit or seed for genetic variables. For each variable, higher is better.

Species	Tells you what kind of plant it is.
Generation	How many times this breed of plant has gone through a full lifecycle. Incremented by 1 whenever a seed is planted.
Maturation Rate	How fast the plant grows from a sprout to a crop-producing plant.
Production Rate	How fast the plant becomes harvestable.
Lifespan	How many harvests the plant will produce before dying. This has no effect on plants at are harvestable only once.
Yield	How many crops the plant will produce besides its normal amount.
Potency	How powerful items produced by this plant are. Higher generally means more reagents inside. Affects crop quality.
Endurance	How high the maximum health of the plant is, which affects how much it can resist dehydration, poison, and fire. Affects crop quality.

With these, you can tell how much of a certain plant you can harvest, or how long it will live, or what you need to do to keep it alive. Some plants aren't just one-off harvests, you can tend tomatoes for multiple harvests if you want! In fact, should you keep the plant happy (with blue indicators above - rich and fertile, and very healthy), you will likely have a chance at harvesting MORE than you would if you had just plain watered it. Some plants may even inherit a special genetic mutation giving them indefinite life, as long as you tend to it. It pays to keep an eye on your plants! It's just a matter of knowing when to add water, or fertilizer, etc. Plants work the same way in real life - to an extent. Don't water your plants? They'll die. Overwater? Same deal. Be careful with your plants, they are fragile, little angels~

Crop quality is affected by potency, endurance, and, to a limited and lesser extent, plant health. Just like life, higher quality plants taste better and thus heal more HP when you eat them, and their crops have more quality prefixes, like "good", "supreme", and "prime". Better also means bigger, for higher quality also means the crops have larger sprites. There's a limit as to how huge crops can get, but it's quite high; with some effort, you can get harvests that are almost as big as a person! You reap what you sow, and if you sow potency and endurance, you'll reap the rewards.

Apart from plain compost, botany starts with several plant formulas tailored to altering a plant's specific traits (all explained in the next section). If you want to experiment, call in the scientist or grab some Discount Dan's and test the effects of various chemicals in the soil.

Tools & Machinery

The fancy stuff you use to enhance your plants or extract useful chemicals. The catering staff also have various culinary gadgets at their disposal for making with fancy foods and drinks with your favorite plants. Feel free to check Foods & Drinks for a full list of recipes.

Icon	Name	Description
	Plant Analyzer	Provides you with a report of a plant's genes, its current condition, the presence of any mutations and other information. The functionality is also built into your PDA.
	Watering Can	Actually just a glorified beaker with a maximum capacity of 120 units. Often requested by Scientists and other people working in Chemistry.
	Produce Satchel	This spacious satchel makes the life of every chef or botanist much easier. Almost any type of food-related item (dishes, bottles, seeds etc.) can be stored in them, and they also interact nicely with tables (drag & drop), crates, the food processor, mail chutes and other objects.
	Chainsaw	An electric chainsaw to keep weeds in check. Passable emergency weapon, but not very durable.
	Hydroponics Tray	The seeds go in here, obviously. You can plant them manually or by using drag & drop. The bar on the right tracks water level, and the tray has various indicators for the status of the plant: - Plant has poor health. Could use some compost. - Plant is ready to be harvested. Click with a bare hand or with a produce satchel to gather its fruits and seeds. - Plant is dangerously low water. Water it with a watering can, obviously. - Plant has too much water. - Plant is dead and should be cleared. You can also click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to secure it to the floor, so that it doesn't move when you bump into it. Clicking on it with a screwdriver or wrench again will unsecure it, allowing you to move it around again.
	Seed Fabricator	To unlock the more interesting seeds (notably cannabis), you'll have to mess with the wires (and for the record, this is a fabricator, not a vending machine, so you'll have to toggle a white light.) The required tools can be found in Tool Storage. A hand-held version may be acquired by hacking the GardenGear vendor.
	GardenGear	Most basic tools and plant formulas are available from this vending machine.
	PlantMaster Mk3	Have a special or even new species in mind? This clever machine allows you to infuse seeds with certain reagents (drawn from an inserted beaker) and splice them together, or in other words tweak the desired genetic traits. It can also extract seeds from fruits or vegetables, which is great if you have a certain strain you want to grow more of. The PlantMaster supports drag & drop for the following objects: seeds, produce, beakers/bottles, produce satchels.
	Reagent Extractor	Processes certain produce into reagents. Comes with two built-in storage tanks capable of holding up to 500 units each. You may then transfer said reagents to an inserted receptacle. The extractor supports drag & drop for the following objects: produce, beakers/bottles, produce satchels.
	CheMaster 3000	See Chemistry.
	Compost Tank	Converts unwanted or excess produce as well as seeds into compost. Use drag & drop to stuff them into the tank. Similar to trays, you can click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to anchor it down; doing it again unanchors it.
	HC Water Tank	This high-capacity tank holds 100000 units of water. If you don't have a watering can, you can use drag & drop to transfer water directly to a hydroponics tray. You can anchor it down by clicking on it with a screwdriver or wrench, so it stays still when you bump into it. Clicking on it a screwdriver or wrench again will unanchor it.
	UV Grow Lamp	Makes all plants with two tiles (i.e. a 5x5 square-shaped area of effect) grow faster. Click it to turn it on and off. Click on it with a screwdriver or wrench to secure it, so it doesn't move when people bump into it; click on it again with a screwdriver or wrench to make it movable again.
	Botanical Mister	Adds a few units of whatever reagents stored inside it into any surrounding trays. By default, it contains 1000 units of water, so it'll effectively water your plants for you, but it'll accept all kinds of chemicals. It's not in Hydroponics at roundstart, except on Destiny and Clarion, but you might find one of these in an semi-abandoned satellite not too far from the Mining Outpost.
	Plant Pot	For decoration. Plants in clay pots don't grow and can't be harvested, but luckily don't need water or nutrients and can't die, making them ideal for sprucing up places or showing off your favorite plants. You can transfer plants to it with a garden trowel. Similar to the tray, you can click on the pot with a screwdriver or wrench to secure the pot, so it stays in place, and unsecure it, so you can move it around. Plant pots are obtained from the GardenGear.
File:GardenTrowel.png File:GardenTrowelFull.png	Garden Trowel	Click a plant in a hydroponics tray with this in your active hand to uproot it, allowing you to transfer it to a clay plant pot. You unfortunately cannot use this to transfer plants to hydroponics trays, and you can uproot the plant at any stage in its growth, from just planted to fully matured and ready to harvest. You can find trowels in the GardenGear.

Nutrient Formulas

In addition, there are a number of plant formulas at your disposal, in a variety of bottles.

Icon	Name	Description
	Weedkiller	Also known as atrazine. As the name implies, it will quickly spell the end for any uninvited guest like lashers or space grass.
	Compost	This basic additive improves the plant's health over time. Can be refilled at, you guessed it, the compost tank.
	Ammonia	Some plants grow slowly, so a bit of ammonia can speed up the process. Just be prepared to water them more often.
	Potash	This is the chemical to go for if you want large harvests, but it will likely shorten the plant's lifespan.
	Saltpetre	Saltpetre tends to have a good effect on the crop potency and is particularly useful for medical herbs, cannabis and chili.
	Mutagenic	Dumping unstable mutagen into the tray is an easy option to grow all kinds of crazy stuff, however you have little actual control. If a species has multiple possible mutations, it will probably be difficult to get the one you desire.
	Mutadone	As seen in medbay, but mutadone also works on plants. Mutating them wildly often damages their DNA and therefore this formula may be required to address some of the genetic problems. Unfortunately, mutadone slows down plant growth significantly as long as it is present in the tray.

Available Crops

Most of these seeds are readily available from the Seed Fabricator, but a few require a little hacking to access.

The game categorizes plant seeds into a couple of categories:

• Fruit & Vegetable: Can typically be eaten by themselves as snacks, often conferring some sort of buff, in addition to being used in dishes. There is no mechanical difference between fruit and vegetable plants SS13, merely an difference in categorization, based roughly on botanical rather than culinary definitions.
• Herb: Can be made into cigarettes and cigarillos and can be burnt to release smokepowder-based clouds made from the reagents inside. Hotboxing!
• Weed: These plants can survive and grow without water, but are vulnerable to weedkiller/atrazine.
• Flower: Are flowers. Looks pretty.
• Miscellaneous: Encompasses a couple of plants that, while edible, are designed to be put to a kitchen processor and made into ingredients for various dishes. This also has a few plants that yield taw resources for materials science.

Name	Crop Icon	Plant Icon	Type	Harvests	Time	Genome	Notes
Grape			Fruit	Variable	Average	20
Orange			Fruit	Variable	Slow	21	Contains orange juice.
Melon			Fruit	Variable	Slow	19	Contains water, unsurprisingly.
Carrot			Vegetable	Once	Average	16
Lemon			Fruit	Variable	Slow	21	Contains lemon juice. Clearly.
Lime			Fruit	Variable	Slow	21	Contains lime juice, as you'd expect.
Apple			Fruit	Variable	Slow	19	Contains apple juice. Heals 1 unit of TOX, BURN, BRUTE, OXY, and BRAIN per bite.
Banana			Fruit	Variable	Average	15	Contains potassium. Yummy.
Strawberry			Fruit	Variable	Average	18	Contains strawberry juice.
Blueberry			Fruit	Variable	Average	18	Contains blueberry juice.
Cherry			Fruit	Variable	Average	20	Contains cherry juice. Not blood, really!
Avocado			Fruit	Variable	Slow	18
Pumpkin			Fruit	Variable	Slow	19	Make your own lantern!
Eggplant			Fruit	Variable	Average	18	Contains nicotine.
Cucumber			Vegetable	Once	Average	19
Garlic			Vegetable	Once	Average	13	Contains holy water. Not recommended for vampires.
Onion			Vegetable	Once	Average	13
Lettuce			Vegetable	Once	Slow	12
Potato			Vegetable	Once	Average	16	Makes great French fries, batteries and captains. Also spawns as a trinket.
Coconut			Fruit	Variable	Average	19	Contains coconut milk, which is distinct from regular space milk.
Pineapple			Fruit	Variable	Average	21	Contains pineapple juice. Don't get in it your eyes.
Coffee berries			Miscellaneous	Variable	Average	6	Extracts into...coffee.
Synthmeat			Miscellaneous	Variable	Average	7	Contains synthetic flesh. If you could make it into patches, Medbay will love you.
Corn			Miscellaneous	Once	Average	10	Processes into popcorn. Contains corn starch.
Soybean			Miscellaneous	Variable	Average	7	Processes into milk. Conveniently contains space soybean oil.
Chili			Fruit	Variable	Average	17	Processes into hot sauce. Contains capsaicin.
Tomato			Fruit	Variable	Average	18	Processes into ketchup. Contains tomato juice. Not blood.
Peanut			Miscellaneous	Once	Average	6	Processes into peanut butter.
Wheat			Miscellaneous	Once	Fast	10	Processes into flour.
Oats			Miscellaneous	Once	Fast	10	Processes into oatmeal.
Sugar Cane/Sugar			Miscellaneous	Once	Fast	8	Processes into sugar. Contains, you guessed it, sugar. (What else would it contain?)
Rice Sprig			Miscellaneous	Variable	Fast	8	Processes into rice.
Beans			Miscellaneous	Variable	Fast	6	Contains nitrogen. Eating it allows fart propulsion in Space!
Pear			Fruit	Variable	Slow	19	Can be fermented into cider.
Peach			Fruit	Variable	Slow	17	Contains peach juice. May contain The Presidents of the United States of America song references.
Cotton			Miscellaneous	Variable	Average	5	Processes into fabric when used in a material processor.
Tree			Miscellaneous	Variable	Slow	20	Chainsaw the resulting log to get your very own barricade.
Bamboo			Miscellaneous	Variable	Slow	10	Produces bamboo stalks, which can be cut down to produce edible shoots.
Contusine			Herb	Once	Average	3	Contains salicylic acid.
Asomna			Herb	Once	Average	3	Contains ephedrine.
Nureous			Herb	Once	Average	3	Contains potassium iodide.
Commol			Herb	Once	Average	16	Contains silver sulfadiazine.
Ipecacuanha			Herb	Once	Average	16	Crop is ipecacuanha root, which contains space ipecac.
Venne			Herb	Once	Average	1	Contains charcoal.
Mint			Herb	Once	Fast	1	Contains, as you'd expect, mint.
Tobacco			Herb	Once	Fast	2	Contains nicotine, naturally.
Catnip/Nepeta cataria			Herb	Once	Average	1	Extract catonium to synthesize cat drugs.
Poppies			Herb	Once	Fast	1	Extracts into morphine.
Cannabis			Herb	Once	Fast	2	Make your own joints by combining a leaf with a sheet of paper.
Aconite			Herb	Once	Average	1	Contains aconitum. Wards aways and smites werewolves.
Rose			Flower	Once	Fast	7	Every rose has its thorn, and the ones on these might prick you if you pick them up while not wearing gloves; use wirecutters to remove them. Every rose has a name too; Examine it to find it!
Space Fungus			Weed	Infinite	Slow	30	Contains, as you'd expect, space fungus, which is great for boosting endurance.
Grass			Weed	Once	Average	4	Harvested leaves can be extracted into Grass Gro, which makes lovely grass grow when poured onto floor tiles.
Creeper	N/A		Weed	N/A	Fast	8	Attacks other plants and spreads into adjacent empty pots.
Lasher	N/A		Weed	N/A	Fast	5	Will lash out at nearby people with its thorns.
Radweed	N/A		Weed	N/A	Slow	40	Emits radiation, affecting nearby plants and people.
Slurrypod			Weed	Once	Average	45	Will explode if not quickly harvested, spreading toxic goop. Contains toxic slurry
Man Eater			Critter	Once	Variable	0	Will climb out of the pot once grown enough.
Houttyunia Cordata			Herb	Once	Average	1	Fish mint, contains mercury.

Crop Mutations

Sometimes, whenever a plant's genes would normally mutate, i.e. when planted, when exposed to mutagen, and when infused in the gene manipulator, the plant might become a variant of itself, called a mutation. Some only occur due to random chance. Others don't appear unless the certain plant stats (usually either endurance or potency) are within certain thresholds or the seed is infused with certain chemicals. Even then, the plant doesn't always automatically mutate upon meeting those prerequisites, for it still has to randomly mutate into the variant. The requirements only ensure the plant has a possibility of becoming that mutation.

There are many different mutations, each with different effects depending on the species! Feel free to experiment or pester more experienced botanists. The following is an extensive but quite possibly incomplete table of possible mutations:

Mutant	Crop Icon	Plant Icon	Original Species	Prerequisites Hint	Info
Seething Tomato			Tomato	Infusion with an incendiary or explosive chemical.	Seethers, tomatoes with hot flavour. When thrown, makes a 3x3 fireball and inflicts BURN upon the person, which scales with potency and can be reduced by heat resistance. Tomato explosions can ignite other seethers, causing them to explode after a delay. Contains welding fuel. Use with caution.
Suspicious Tomato			Tomato	Infusion with an animating serum.	Crikey, aggressive vegetables.
Tomacco			Tomato	Infusion with a drug. (It's exactly what you think.)	Edible cigarettes! Contains super-addictive amounts of nicotine.
Green Grape			Grape		Heals twice the amount of regular grapes.
Grapefruit			Grape		Get it? Contains grapefruit juice.
Blood Orange			Orange		Contains changeling blood in addition to orange juice. Peculiar.
Clockwork Orange			Orange	High Endurance	An orange that is also a chronometer, how practical. Hurts to eat though. Extracts into iron.
Rainbow Weed			Cannabis		Gets you extremely high.
Deathweed			Cannabis	Low to High Endurance, Zero to High Potency	Gets you extremely dead.
Lifeweed			Cannabis	High Endurance, High Potency	Contains omnizine.
Omega Weed			Cannabis	Extremely High Potency	Gets you extremely high and extremely dead due to the massive amount of poisons and drugs in it. Specifically it contains: atropine, bath salts, capsaicin, cat drugs, crank, ectoplasm, hairgrownium,haloperidol, histamine, itching powder, krokodil, lithium, LSD, methamphetamine, mercury, psilocybin, space drugs, Suicider, and THC.
Chilly Pepper			Chili	Infusion with a cold chemical (optional).	Quite...chilling.
Fiery Chili			Chili	Very High Potency OR Infusion with a fiery or spicy chemical (optional).	Also known as ghost chilis and ghostlier chilis. Contains extremely spicy ghost chili juice!
Magic Mushroom			Space Fungus		Contains psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen.
White Mushroom			Space Fungus	High Potency, Zero to Low Endurance	Contains a potent mycotoxin.
Cloaked Panellus			Space Fungus	High Yield, Zero to Low Potency	Cute. Also known as "cloakshroom". Contains cloaked panellus extract.
Omega Slurrypod			Slurrypod		Variously called omega slurrypod and glowing slurrypod. Contains two toxins for the price of one. You really shouldn't eat this...
Synthbrain			Synthmeat
Synthheart			Synthmeat		Makes pharosium when put into a material processor.
Syntheye			Synthmeat		Makes pharosium when put into a material processor.
Synthlimb			Synthmeat		Grows synthetic arms and legs.
Synthbutt			Synthmeat		Grow your own hat!
Synthbuttbot			Synthmeat	Infusion of synthbutt seed with a bot chemical.	Grow your own buttbot!
Free-range Egg-Plant			Eggplant	Infusion with a form of eggs. (optional)
Steel Wheat			Wheat, Oats	Infusion with a steel component. (optional)	Use the food processor to convert the ears into iron fillings. Use a reclaimer/material processor to get...steel.
Durum Wheat			Wheat		A hardy wheat for a hardy palatte, fit for processing into spaghetti
Clear Corn			Corn		Contains ethanol.
Rainbow Melon			Melon		The ideal party snack! Full of melonium and fun to throw at people!
Bowling Melon			Melon	Bowling-Related (Low) Endurance	A melon that you can also use as a bowling ball! Damage scales with more endurance up to a point.
Balloon Melon			Melon	Infusion with something used to fill balloons.	Not a melon at all, just a regular balloon. Filled with whatever reagents the plant produces. Endurance can help you increase its capacity. Discounting the custom versions made through splicing, they come in two varieties, whose sole difference is the "gas" used to fill the balloon.
Delicious-looking Apple			Apple	Higher than High Endurance	Contains capulettium.
Peanutbutter Sandwich			Peanut	Infusion with the missing ingredient.
Strange Soybean			Soybean		This "soylent chartreuse" contains high-energy plankton, promised!
Money Tree			Tree		In space, money does grow on trees. Handy shortcut to know: click-dragging a stack of cash on the floor onto a stack of cash in your hand lets you collect all the cash around you and puts it into the stack you're holding.
Rubber Tree			Tree		Contains rubber, the reagent. Where all the synthrubber for the wires comes from.
Sassafras			Tree		Contains safrole. Makes sarsaparilla when put into a still.
Dogwood Tree	N/A		Tree		Bark Bark Awoo.
Paper Tree			Tree		Creates paper. How direct!
Shivering Contusine			Contusine		Contains salbutamol in addition to salicylic acid.
Quivering Contusine			Contusine		Contains curare in addition to salicylic acid.
Robust Asomna			Asomna		Contains methamphetamine in addition to ephedrine.
Fuzzy Nureous			Nureous		Contains hairgrownium in addition to potassium iodide.
Burning Commol			Commol		Contains phlogiston in addition to silver sulfadiazine.
Bilious Ipecacuanha			Ipecacuanha		Harvests into ipecacuanha roots, which contain vomit, sewage, and bitters in addition to ipecac. Can be distilled into vomit.
Invigorating Ipecacuanha			Ipecacuanha		Harvests into ipecacuanha roots, which contain synaptizine in addition to ipecac.
Black Venne			Venne		Contains atropine in addition to charcoal.
Dawning Venne			Venne		Contains oculine, mannitol and mutadone in addition to charcoal.
Twobacco			Tobacco	High Potency	Get it? Contains nicotwaine.
Blooming Lasher			Lasher
Smoldering Radweed	N/A		Radweed
White Radweed	N/A		Radweed		Completely harmless.
Wholetuna Cordata			Houttyunia Cordata		Literal fish mint.
Jelly Bean			Bean		Grows magical jelly beans that can contain all sorts of chemicals.
Sickly Pear			Pear	Infuse with #2.	Contains "too much", which gives you a very hot fever. Can only be made during Ass Jam.

Advanced Gardening for Dummies

Plants are more than just big dumb objects that get thirsty and give you crops. They're complex systems with their own genetics system, complete with splicing, and are intimately affected by chemicals in different ways. Read on to learn about some of the more complicated things you can do with botany.

Extraction

Most plants will give you seeds when harvested, but some don't. Lack of seeds is naturally a problem, because some advanced botanical techniques involve manipulating seeds, and seeds are essential to passing on traits from your agriculturally-engineered plants.

Fortunately, in these cases, you can still get the seeds by inserting some fruits (one or two will do) into the PlantMaster, clicking on it to bring up its computer interface, switching to the "Seed Extraction" page, and clicking "Extract" for the fruit of choice. It's that simple--you even get to see the stats of the fruit.

Note that it is important that you insert an actual fruit. You can't, for example, get cannabis seeds from a cannabis leaf, because the leaf doesn't have seeds.

Infusions

Infusion allows you to directly modify plant traits by adding a chemical reagent to a plant seed, rather than waiting for Mother Nature and the Father Random Number to slowly evolve your seeds. For some seeds, infusing certain plants also has chance to induce a special mutation. Note that infusing a certain reagent doesn't make that plant produce that reagent, e.g. infusing water won't make the fruit of the resulting plant contain water.

Infusions are performed at a PlantMaster Mk3. Click on the PlantMaster with your seed of choice, then a container with the chemicals you want to infuse the seed with, and click on the PlantMaster. (Click-dragging also works.) Go to the "Seed List" page, scroll to your seed of interest and choose "Infuse"; if you have multiple chemicals that could be infused, you get to choose. You should see the effects immediately. Note you need at least 10 units of a chemical to infuse it, and effects don't scale by volume, not that it matters much since you always infuse 10 units at a time.

Each chem does a range of damage to the seed on infusion, increases the chance of failed splicings and reducing the health of the resulting plant. If you try to infuse past 100% damage your plant seed will be destroyed. Let's take saltpetre, for example. You put your seed in the PlantMaster Mk3, and on infusion the plant will be dealt a range of damage from 3 to 7. It also will increase the potency in a range of +2 to +8. It has a chance to increase the yield by up to 2 as well or not at all. Meanwhile, mutadone is a little more interesting in the fact that it will try to raise all stats to zero if they are below zero.

Most of the Reagents available from the GardenGear machine can boost different stats, experiment and see what you like best. If you're interested, here's a table below you can expand to see all the chems you can infuse that actually have an effect, where to get them, and what they do.

Reagent	Source	Mat. Rate	Prod. Rate	Lfspn.	Yld.	Potency	Endurance	Seed Dmg.	Notes & Additional Effects
Ammonia	Ammonia Plant Formula	+5 – +10	+2 – +5	-	-	-	-	+13 – +27	Good at speeding up plant growth. Has 5% chance to also give Accelerator gene
Potash	Potash Plant Formula	-	-	-2 – 0	+1 – +4	-	-	+3 – +7	Increases size of harvests at cost of plant lifespan.
Saltpetre	Saltpetre Plant Formula	-	-	-	0 – +2	+2 – +8	-	+3 – +7	Increases amount of chemicals inside each crop and boosts amount of crops you get too a bit.
Space Fungus	Use a beaker or similar on fungus stains in maintenance or extract from Space Fungus.	-	-	-	-	-	+1 – +3	+3 – +7	In addition, has 3% chance of giving Damage Resistance gene. The go-to for increasing Endurance, which makes plants more hardy and is essential for certain mutations.
Mutadone	Mutadone Plant Formula	If < 0, +1	If < 0, +1	If < 0, +1	If < 0, +1	If < 0, +1	If < 0, +1	+3 – +7	Essentially attempts to reset stats back to zero, indirectly reversing the effects of chems like unstable mutagen.
Radium	Chem Dispenser	-10 – +10	-10 – +10	33% chance to -1 – +1	-2 – +2	-5 – +5	-3 – +3	+8 – +22	Basically, randomizes plant stats! Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation.
Uranium	Discount Dan's food products, NPC merchants.	-10 – +10	-10 – +10	33% chance to -1 – +1	-2 – +2	-5 – +5	-3 – +3	+8 – +22	Makes plant stats go up and down by random amounts and also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation.
Stable Mutagen	See Chemicals	-10 – +10	-10 – +10	33% chance to -1 – +1	-2 – +2	-5 – +5	-3 – +3	+3 – +7	Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation, with separate 2% chance of granting Unstable gene. One of the safer options for messing with plant genetics and randomizing stats.
Unstable Mutagen	Mutagenic Plant Formula	-20 – +20	-20 – +20	33% chance to -2 – +2	-4 – +4	-10 – +10	-6 – +6	+3 – +7	Also attempts to grant new gene and induce a plant mutation, with separate 5% chance of granting Unstable gene. Offers mostly minimal seed damage and the highest stat randomization ranges, but with risk of a potentially bad gene.
Blood	Ask Medbay for some, Stab yourself and scoop up blood with beaker or similar.	+5 – +10	+5 – +10	-	-	-	+10 – +30	+3 – +7	Hastens growth and makes Man-Eater stronger, but otherwise has no effect on other seeds.
Toxic Slurry	Extract from slurrypods.	-	-	-	-	-	+4 – +8	Resets to 0	Toxic stuff is good for Slurrypod seeds! And only those seeds.
Green Vomit	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	+4 – +8	Resets to 0	Fixes seed damage and boosts endurance of Slurrypod seeds, and only slurrypod seeds.
Weird Cheese	Extract from weird cheese.	-	-	-	-	-	+4 – +8	Resets to 0	Yet another gross chem that clears seed damage and raises endurance of Slurrypod seeds, and only slurrypod seeds.
Charcoal	Extract from venne, ask Medbay for some.	-	-	-	-	-	-	Sets to 100	Only applies if seed is Slurrypod
Pryosium	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+83 – +107	Firey chems hurt plants.
Phlogiston	Extract from Burning Commol or see Chemicals.	-	-	-	-	-	-	+83 – +107	Liquid fire is bad for seeds. What else is new?
Chlorine Triflouride	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+83 – +107	ClF3 hates scientists and firefighters, and it hates plant seeds too.
Sorium	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+83 – +107	Fun for sending objects flying, but hurts seeds a lot when infused.
Fluorosulfuric Acid	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+78 – +87	This powerful acid hurts seeds a lot. Who knew?
Sulfuric Acid	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+43 – +57	This common acid is bad for seeds. Were you expecting something else?
Atrazine	Weedkiller bottles	-	-	-	-	-	-	+53 – +67	Weedkiller harms weed seeds too (and only weed seeds), less if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene.
Plasma	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Turns out plasma is not good for seeds. Damage is reduced if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene.
Toxin	Rancid milk, certain insect bites.	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Naturally, toxin is bad for seeds. It's not so bad if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene.
Mercury	Extract from fishmint or get from Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Bad for soil, bad for people, bad for seeds too. Toxin Immunity Gene reduces most of the damage.
Oil	See Chemicals	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Oil hurts the seed. Less damage if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene.
Space Cleaner	Ask the Janitor for some.	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	There is less damage if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene.
Chlorine	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Chlorine hurts you a bit, and it hurts seeds a bit too. Less damage if seed has Toxin Immunity Gene.
Fluorine	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Fluorine damages seed less if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene.
Welding Fuel	Get from handheld fuel tanks and big tanks.	-	-	-	-	-	-	+18 – +37	Less seed damage if it has the Toxin Immunity Gene.

Tray Chemistry

Certain chemicals have certain effects that occur every few seconds when they're in inside plant tray. Whilst infusion effects are immediate, tray effects can add up. Due to the funny way BYOND uses numbers, a plant absorbs roughly half the reagents in its tray every while or so, but never actually runs out, like some sort of chemical Zeno's motion paradox. Since chems in trays don't actually scale by unit (e.g. 0.25 units of saltpetre is the same as 250 units in the tray), then given enough time, a batch of chemicals in a tray can have a greater effect than infusing it into a seed.

Different chemicals affect different statistics. Besides the self-explanatory health and the previous discussed Maturation Rate, Production Rate, Lifespan, Yield, Potency, and Endurance, some plants also boost a hidden "Growth" stat that tracks how mature a plant is. Some chemicals also damage the plant, taking away health, and there are different types of damage. This is less like how humans take BRUTE and BURN damage and more like how toolboxes and knives both inflict BRUTE but the first causes it through blunt trauma while the second stabs. RAD and POISON damage can by negated by certain genes, but ACID and FIRE damage cannot be resisted.

While most chemicals don't affect plants that much, many others do. Don't be afraid to experiment and find out for yourself. If you're impatient, pathologically curious, or don't mind being spoiled, expand the table below.

Reagent	Source	Growth	Health	Mat. Rate	Prod. Rate	Lfspn.	Yld.	Potency	Endurance	Dmg. (Type)	Notes & Additional Effects
Phosphorus	Chem Dispenser	66% chance of +1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Slightly boosts plant growth speed, not as good as other chems though.
Ammonia	Ammonia Plant Formula	+4	66% chance of +1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Removes 4 units of chems from tray every few seconds. Specifically it removes a bit from each different chem, but the general ratio of chems will be preserved, and it can't remove all of a certain chem. End-all-be-all for accelerating growth speed.
Diethylamine	Ammonia Plant Formula + Ethanol + Heat	66% chance of +2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Midtier plant growth speed booster.
Potassium	Extract from bananas or get from Chem Dispenser	40% chance of +1	40% chance of +1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Low-tier growth speed and health booster.
Ash	Heat up paper or oil in a beaker or similar container.	80% chance of +1	80% chance of +1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Passable for healing plants and speeding up growth, but there're definitely better options.
Compost	Compost Bag	-	66% chance of +1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Okay at restoring plant health, but ammonia offers same benefits and more. But it's pretty common.
Potash	Potash Plant Formula	50% chance of +1	50% chance of +1	-	-	If > 1, 24% chance of -1	24% chance of +1	-	-	-	If plant dies after one harvest, separate 66% chance of -2 GROWTH if GROWTH > 2. More crops per harvest, but plant doesn't live as long.
Saltpetre	Saltpetre Plant Formula	80% chance of +3	80% chance of +3	-	-	-	If >1, 24% chance of -1	50% chance of +1	-	-	Gives crops bigger volume of chems, but you get less crops per harvest. Also surprisingly good at healing plants and making them grow faster.
Space Fungus	Use a beaker or similar on fungus stains in maintenance or extract from Space Fungus.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	50% chance of +1	-	Probably your best choice for boosting Endurance to get specific mutations or make plants more robust.
Water	Sink, water tank	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Essential for plant growth to occur at all.
Mutadone	Mutadone Plant Formula	If >5, 80% chance of -5 GROWTH	-	If <0, 50% chance of +1	If <0, 50% chance of +1	If <0, 50% chance of +1	If <0, 50% chance of +1	If <0, 50% chance of +1	If <0, 50% chance of +1	-	Attempts to restore plant stats to 0 if they're negative, but inhibits growth.
Charcoal	Extract from venne, ask Medbay for some.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Removes 2 units of these harmful chemicals: chlorine, mercury, plasma, radium, sulfuric acid,toxin, toxic slurry, welding fuel
Blood	Ask Medbay for some, stab yourself and scoop up blood with beaker or similar.	+3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Growth speed boost occurs only if plant is man-eater
Radium	Chem Dispenser	-	-	16% chance of -10 – +10	16% chance of -10 – +10	16% chance of -1 – +1	16% chance of -2 – +2	16% chance of -5 – +5	16% chance of -3 – +3	80% chance of +3 RAD	16% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. Radioactive stuff hurts plant growth and randomizes plant stats, naturally.
Uranium	Discount Dan's food products, NPC merchants.	-	-	24% chance of -10 – +10	24% chance of -10 – +10	24% chance of -1 – +1	24% chance of -2 – +2	24% chance of -5 – +5	24% chance of -3 – +3	+2 RAD	24% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. It makes sense a radioactive element would scramble plant stats and sometimes induce new genes and mutations.
Polonium	Traitors' poison bottles, pill bottles marked ????	-	-	25% chance of -10 – +10	25% chance of -10 – +10	25% chance of -1 – +1	25% chance of -2 – +2	25% chance of -5 – +5	25% chance of -3 – +3	80% chance of +5 RAD	25% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Damage does not occur if plant has Radiation Immunity gene. This radioactive substance is a little better than other elements at scrambling plant stats and causing genes and mutations, but causes more damage.
Stable Mutagen	See Chemicals	80% chance of -3 – -1	-	16% chance of -10 – +10	16% chance of -10 – +10	16% chance of -1 – +1	16% chance of -2 – +2	16% chance of -5 – +5	16% chance of -3 – +3	-	16% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Unstable mutagen is better in almost every way.
Unstable Mutagen	Mutagenic Plant Formula	If >1, 40% chance of -1	-	24% chance of -10 – +10	24% chance of -10 – +10	24% chance of -1 – +1	24% chance of -2 – +2	24% chance of -5 – +5	24% chance of -3 – +3	-	24% chance to attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Like its name suggests, it scrambles plant stats and sometimes causes new genes and mutations.
Glowing Slurry	Extract from omega slurrypods.	-2 – -1	-	-10 – +10	-10 – +10	-1 – +1	-2 – +2	-5 – +5	-3 – +3	-	Attempt to give plant new gene and transform plant into a mutation. Arguably best of its kind for randomizing plant stats and inducing genes and mutations, with a relatively low growth penalty.
Atrazine	Weedkiller bottles	-3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2 POISON	Damages plant and inhibits growth only if plant is a weed and does not have Toxin Immunity.
Plasma	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2 POISON	Turns out plasma hurts plants, for the most part. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene.
Acetaldehyde	See Chemicals page.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4 POISON	This chemical precursor hurts the plant if it does not have Toxin Immunity gene.
Formaldehyde	Ask Chaplain or Medbay, see Chemicals page.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4 POISON	Embalming fluid hurts plants. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene.
Toxin	See Chemicals page	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 POISON	Toxin hurts you a little, and it hurts plants a little too. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene.
Miasma	See Chemicals page	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 POISON	Miasma is harmful for both plants and people. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene.
Acetic Acid	See Chemicals page	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 ACID	It's a weak acid, but it still hurts plants.
Fluorosulfuric Acid	See Chemicals page	-5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	10 ACID	As with people and items, this nasty acid wrecks plant health and severely stunts growth. Did you expect anything else?
Sulfuric Acid	See Chemicals page	-3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5 ACID	Not as bad as its fluoro- version, but still hurts plant health and slows growth.
Phlogiston	Extract from Burning Commol or see Chemicals page	-12	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8 FIRE	To nobody's surprise, adding phlogiston destroys most plants and acutely stunts growth.
Phlogiston Dust	See Chemicals page	-12	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8 FIRE	Just like regular phlogiston, the dust form hurts plant health and growth.
Napalm Goo	See Chemicals page or notes.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 POISON	Unsurprisingly, napalm is bad for plants, though you might be surprised it poisons them rather than burns them. No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene. It's also possible to make this if you make some clever splices with seething tomatoes.
Welding Fuel	Get from handheld fuel tanks and big tanks.	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 POISON	Damages plant if it does not has Toxin Immunity gene.
Chlorine	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3 POISON	Hurts people, hurts plants too, if plant lacks Toxin Immunity gene.
Fluorine	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3 POISON	No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene
Mercury	Chem Dispenser	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 POISON	Mercury hurts plants, who knew? No damage if plant has Toxin Immunity gene

Splicing

Splicing allows you to combine two individual plant genomes together into a entirely new hybrid plant, with the interesting side effect of the resulting hybrid extracting into whatever the parent plants extracted into. This results in things like superherbs that heal burns, fix genetic defects, and remove toxin damage simultaneously, "prank" bananas that explode when eaten, and peanuts so sugary that they put people in diabetic comas. The splicing process also combines the names of the plants spliced, potentially yielding Amusing & Entertaining (TM) results.

The actual splicing process is pretty simple. To start, click on an PlantMaster with two of your seeds of choice, or click-drag them onto the machine. Then click on the PlantMaster, go to the "Seed List" page, scroll to your seeds of interest, and click on "Splice" for both. You'll get a number describing how likely it is the splicing will go through, and once you confirm you want to proceed with the splicing, you should get a new seed, with a name along the lines of "Hybrid [roughly half of name of one plant][roughly half of name of other plant].

Meanwhile, the mechanics of splicing, especially regarding splicing chance, are considerably more complicated than a few mouse clicks and are described below.

Adapted from a forum post by ISaidNo

Each plant species has a variable called "Genome" which is used to track how similar two species are to one another. Generally two species from the same group (eg fruit, veg, herbs) will have genomes which are close to each other, and thus easier to splice.

When splicing, the formula for your chances is worked out like so:

1. Start Splicing Chance at 100%
2. Compare the genomes of the two seeds, subtract the lower one from the higher one
3. Multiply the sum of step 2 by 10, then subtract that from the splicing chance
4. If either seed has damage from infusing, subtract damage amount from splicing chance
5. Cap splicing chance between 0 and 100 to prevent bugs
6. Perform the check to see if splicing succeeds or not

So, an example. You're trying to splice Weed (genome 2) with Synthmeat (genome 7).

You start with 100% splicing chance.

Subtract low genome from high genome: 7 - 2 = 5

Multiply that by 10: 5 * 10 = 50

Subtract that from the splicing chance: 100 - 50 = 50

Assuming you haven't damaged either seed with infusion, you have a 50/50 chance for this splice to succeed. That's not so good odds, of course. So how can we improve them?

When seeds are successfully spliced, the hybrid has a new genome which is the average of the two, calculated by adding the two plant's genomes together and then halving it. Assuming you successfully spliced Weed and Synthmeat, the new genome would be (from (2 + 7) / 2) 4.5.

What you need to do is chain. The genomes are generally done by group: Herbs have very low genomes, grasses and veg are in the middle, and fruit has very high genomes. Alien plants and weeds have genomes that are all over the place. This isn't a general rule either, there are exceptions here and there! Commol has a genome that's more in the vegetable group than the herb group with it being a root rather than a leaf, for example.

Out of this World

Out in the Debris Field, Adventure Zone, and Trench, you can find several strange, truly alien seeds (though, despite the similar appearance and name, they are not man-eater seeds) Experiment!

---