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:

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! This variable is irrelevant to plants with only one harvest.
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. Will change the quantity of chemical that can be extracted from each harvested item.
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. 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~

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 are of course more options for the catering staff. Feel free to check Foods & Drinks for a full list of recipes.

Icon	Name	Description
File:PlantAnalyzer.png	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 by any other name. Has a maximum capacity of 120 units, and you should expect chemists to ask for one frequently.
	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. The indicators are from left to right: "low plant health" alert, "ready to harvest" alert and current water level.
	Seed Fabricator	To unlock the more interesting seeds (notably cannabis), you'll have to mess with the wires. The required tools can be found in nearby tool storage.
	GardenGear	Most basic tools and plant formulas are available from this vending machine.
File:PlantMaster.png	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.
	Reagent Extractor	Processes certain produce into reagents. Comes with two built-in storage tanks capable of holding up to 100 units each. You may then transfer said reagents to an inserted receptacle.
	ChemMaster 3000	Once you have extracted whatever you wanted, the ChemMaster can turn the stuff into pills or bottles.
	Compost Tank	Converts unwanted or excess produce as well as seeds into compost. Use drag & drop to stuff them into the tank.
	HC Water Tank	Unlike the regular version, these store a much larger amount of water.

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

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.

Available Crops

Name	Type	Yield	Harvests	Time	Notes
Tomato	Food	3	3	Average	Makes Ketchup
Grape	Food	5	2	Slow
Orange	Food	2	3	Average
Melon	Food	2	5	Slow
Chili	Food	3	3	Average	Hot Sauce (breed for potency)
Lettuce	Food	6	Once	Fast	Starts at poor health
Carrot	Food
Lemon	Food
Carrot	Food
Apple	Food	3	10	Very Slow
Banana	Food	5	4	Slow
Corn	Food				Cornstarch or Popcorn
Potato	Food
Peanut	Food				Peanut Butter
Eggplant	Food
Garlic	Food
Onion	Ingredient
Avacado	Ingredient				Guacamole
Soybean	Ingredient				Processes into milk
Pumpkin	Ingredient			Average
Synthmeat	Ingredient	3	2	Average
Wheat	Ingredient	5	Once	Fast	Flour
Sugar	Ingredient	7	Once	Fast	Baker's Sugar
Contusine	Herb	5	Once	Average	Can extract Salicylic Acid
Asomna	Herb	5	Once	Average	Can extract Ephedrine
Nureous	Herb	5	Once	Average	Can extract Potassium Iodide
Commol	Herb	5	Once	Average	Can extract Silver Sulfadiazine
Venne	Herb	5	Once	Average	Can extract Charcoal
Cannabis	Herb	5	Once	Fast	Smokeable, combine leaf and paper
Catnip	Herb
Space Fungus	Weed	3	Infinite	Slow	Grows mold mushrooms
Grass	Weed	2	Once	Average	Harvested seeds can be planted on most floor tiles.
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
Slurrypod	Weed	1	Once	Average	Will explode if not quickly harvested, spreading toxic goop.
Man-Eater	Critter	1	Once	Variable	Becomes ambulatory and aggressive if grown enough

Crop Mutations

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.

Mutant	Icon	Species	Info
Green Grape		Grape	Heals twice the amount of regular grapes.
Rainbow Weed	File:RainbowWeed.png	Cannabis	Gets you extremely high.
Deathweed		Cannabis	Gets you extremely dead.
Lifeweed		Cannabis	Contains omnizine.
Chilly Pepper		Chili	Quite...chilling.
Fiery Chili	File:GhostlierChili.png	Chili	Extremely spicy!
Magic Mushroom		Space Fungus	Contains psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen.
White Mushroom		Space Fungus	Very toxic.
Glowing Slurrypod		Slurrypod	You really shouldn't eat this...
Synthbrain		Synthmeat
Synthbutt		Synthmeat	Grow your own hat!
Free-range Egg-Plant		Eggplant
Steel Wheat		Wheat	Use the food processor to convert the ears into iron fillings.
Rainbow Melon		Melon	The ideal party snack!
Immortal Melon		Melon	Can be harvested an infinite amount of times.
Immortal Banana		Banana
Strange Soybean		Soybean	Contains high-energy plankton, promised!
Shivering Contusine		Contusine	Contains salbutamol in addition to salicyclic 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.
Black Venne		Venne	Contains atropine in addition to charcoal.
Dawning Venne		Venne	Contains oculine, mannitol and mutadone in addition to charcoal.
Blooming Lasher		Lasher
White Radweed		Radweed
Smoldering Radweed		Radweed

Advanced Gardening for Dummies

The PlantMaster Mk3 is a powerful tool for the dedicated botanist. Instead of solely relying on Mother Nature and hoping for the best, you can tweak genetic traits with better precision. To this end, the machine has been equipped with three distinct modules:

A seed extractor, because you kind of need seeds to work on them.
An injector to infuse seeds with chemicals provided by a beaker or other container.
A splicing apparatus to create hybrids of the same or two different species.

Extraction

In case you don't already have seeds with the DNA of a particular plant, insert some fruits (one or two will do) and switch the computer to the extraction mode. It's that simple.

Infusions

Infusing seeds is a straightforward affair. Provide the machine with a seed and filled receptacle, bring up the seed list and proceed from there. Though the various plant formulas will usually be the choice for reliable results, you can use any reagent for experimentation. If the beaker contains several chemicals, you will be prompted to select one. Just keep in mind that every infusion requires 10 units.

Depending on various factors, an infusion may have undesired consequences. Here, the goal was to increase the potency of a cannabis seed with the help of saltpetre and while the operation was successful, it also had an effect on the yield trait. The outcome was beneficial in this example, but other potent reagents (unstable mutagen in particular) tend to have more negative side-effects.

Regardless of what you end up injecting, damage to the seed is almost guaranteed. It increases the chance of failed splicings, plants grown from them are less healthy overall and require special care. Compost is good, presence of mutadone in the nutrient solution is better.

Splicing

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

Certain artifacts can be put into plant pods with... unusual effects. Experiment!