Guide to Botany

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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:

Check Message	What It Means
The soil is completley dry.	The soil has ran out of water. This will quickly kill the plant.
The soil looks a little dry.	The water level is getting low, so top it up!
The soil is too soggy.	You've added too much water, which stunts growth. It isn't a threat to the plant's health, so wait it out.
The soil looks rich and fertile.	Indicates the presence of compost in the soil. Remember, this dries out the soil quicker.
The plant growing irregularly!	Indicates the presence of mutagen in the soil. This causes plant genes to mutate wildly.
The plant is withering!	Indicates the presence of poison in the soil. This kills plants very rapidly.
The plant is in a poor condition.	The plant's health is low, which negatively affects harvests. Use compost!
The plant looks very healthy.	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.

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. You shouldn't need to do this generally, but it's there if you need it. 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:
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 long the plant takes to grow from a sprout to a crop-producing plant. Lower is better! This is only marginally useful to single-harvest plants.
Production Rate
How long you have to wait between each harvest. Lower is better!
Lifespan
How many harvests the plant will produce before dying. Higher is better! Plants that only produce one harvest before dying do not have this variable.
Yield
How many crops the plant will produce besides its normal amount. Higher is better!
Potency
How powerful items produced by this plant are. This could be good or bad depending on what the crop is.
Endurance
How much the plant can resist dehydration, poison, and fire.

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. 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~

If you want to experiment, call in the Scientist and experiment with various different chemicals in the soil. Some types of chemical will add lots of nutrients to the soil, some chemicals have a mutagenic effect on the plant which causes the plant's genes to rapidly mutate, and some chemicals are toxic to plants and will kill them very quickly.

Adding compost to the soil will increase your harvest. You can make more harvest by stuffing stuff into the compost tank. Clicking and dragging will attempt to move everything in reach inside, so don't do it while you're standing next to your prize pile of primo! The soil will become rich and fertile, and the time it takes to grow may lessen, or your harvestable product may go up.

Botanist Machinery

There are various pieces of equipment around the station which work in tandem with Hydroponics produce of various kinds. Team up with their owner to get the most benefit (or detriment) for the station. These are:

Icon	Machine Name	Description
	Seed Extractor	Extracts 1-4 seeds from a piece of fruit, preserving the genes
	Gene Manipulator	Alters the genes of a seed - has a 1 in 10 chance of destroying the seed but a higher chance of turning it into a mutant strain
	Reagent Extractor	Processes certain items into reagents and puts them in an inserted beaker
	Food Processor	Processes certain items into a different (often more usable) form

Available Crops

Icon	Plant Name	Plant Type	Yield	Harvests	Time Needed	Info
	Tomato	Food	3	3	Average	Can be processed into Ketchup
	Grape	Food	5	2	Slow
	Orange	Food	2	3	Average
	Melon	Food	2	5	Slow
	Chili	Food	3	3	Average	Can be bred for spiciness, can be processed into Hot Sauce
	Spinach	Food	6	Once	Fast	Starts at poor health
	Apple	Food	3	10	Very Slow
	Banana	Food	5	4	Slow
	Synthmeat	Ingredient	3	2	Average	Starts at poor health
	Wheat	Ingredient	5	Once	Fast	Can be processed into Flour
	Sugar Cane	Ingredient	7	Once	Fast	Can be processed into Sugar
	Contusine	Drug	5	Once	Average	Can extract Bicaridine from leaves, can be bred for potency
	Asomna	Drug	5	Once	Average	Can extract Inaprovaline from leaves, can be bred for potency
	Nureous	Drug	5	Once	Average	Can extract Hyronalin from leaves, can be bred for potency
	Commol	Drug	5	Once	Average	Can extract Kelotane from leaves, can be bred for potency
	Cannabis	Drug	5	Once	Fast	Smokable (combine leaf+paper), can be bred for potency
	Space Fungus	Weed	3	Infinite	Slow	Grows disgusting mold mushrooms
	Creeper	Weed	None	None	Fast	Attacks other plants and spreads into adjacent empty pots
	Lasher	Weed	None	None	Fast	Will attack people standing next to it or trying to kill it
	Radweed	Weed	None	None	Slow	Emits radiation affecting nearby plants and people
	Man-Eater	???	1	Once	Variable	Becomes ambulatory and aggressive if grown enough

Crop Mutations

(Organic is for wimps) Whenever a plant's genes would normally mutate (when planted, exposure to mutagen, in the gene manipulator), there is a rare chance that the plant will become a mutant variant of its normal self. These have different effects depending on the species! This list is not complete, so feel free to experiment or pester more experienced botanists.

Icon	Mutant Plant Name	Species Type	Info
	Green Grapes	Grape	Is green, heals double when eaten
	Rainbow Weed	Cannabis	Gets you extremely high
	Death Weed	Cannabis	Gets you extremely dead
	Chilly Pepper	Chili	Cools you down
	Psilocybin	Fungus	A potent hallucinogen
	Amanita	Fungus	Very toxic