7 Days To Die Farming Guide

Overview

Farming is one of the game activities that you should get to sooner rather than later. The reason for this is that food is one of the most basic requirements for survival and as the game progresses you will often yourself hungry and thirsty. These affect your health, stamina and also how fast you recover. That is why having a sustainable system for obtaining food is key to survival and Farming is how you obtain that system.

If set it up correctly and efficiently, then you can always be sure of having food right at home. And once it is set up, you will have everything right there to keep it going. To put it simply, the farming cycle consists of obtaining the seeds, preparing a location, ensuring good growing conditions, planting & growing and then finally, harvesting.

Although you can harvest using your fist, using the appropriate tool will make the process much faster, especially in the case of trees. Additionally, you can make farming more efficient by unlocking the different levels of Living Off The Land Perk. Let us now take a look at each step of the farming cycle in detail so you know exactly how to go about it.

Steps To Farming In 7 Days To Die

1 – Obtaining & Planting Seeds

In order to plant trees or crops first you need its seed. In the case of a tree, it’s quite simple. All you got to do is harvest a fully mature tree and you will also gather its seed along with the wood. However, if you want to get crop seeds you can either buy them off a trader, find it while looting or craft seeds from harvested crops. 

To be able to craft seeds you need to first unlock the Living Off The Land Perk. Level 1 of this perk enables you to craft seeds for flower crops. Level 2 enables you to craft seeds from berries, vegetables and even mutated crops. 

Once you have obtained the relevant seed, now you need to plant it. However, before planting the seeds, you need to first build a Farm Plot. You can craft a farm plot using the following items:

• 100 x Clay Soil 
• 25 x Nitrate Powder
• 10 x Rotting Flesh
• 4 x Wood

Note that you don’t need farm plots in order to plant mushrooms and Trees. These can be directly planted on any open piece of land.

2 – Managing Sunlight

Except for Mushrooms, all plants need sunlight in order to grow. That is why planting outside in an open area is always simpler. Even if you build walls around your farm all you need to do is ensure there is enough space for light to enter from the top. 

This is also why having a farm indoors can be very tricky. But there is a way around it. There are certain blocks in 7D2D through which natural light can pass. For example, light will pass through a chimney. Also, the light opacity value is different for different materials  This also factors in when calculating how much light will pass through a certain structure.

Natural light is essential for all plants to grow. Again, mushrooms are an exception here. Hence, you need to ensure that either you plant outside in an open area or create a structure that lets in natural light. That is why indoor farming can be a bit tricky, although there are a few ways around it.

In 7D2D the light levels range from 0 (full darkness) to 15 (full sunlight). So if you have a certain block such as bulletproof glass with a light opacity value of 2, it will reduce the light value by 2. So the light level you receive below this block will be 13. The vertical distance from the source is also a factor when ensuring proper lighting for your plants. The maximum distance that light can reach is 6 meters. So make sure your farm plot is not more than 6 meters away from the block through which light must pass.

3 – Understanding Growth Cycle

Now that you have obtained the seeds and planted them correctly, you are halfway through your farming. Now is the waiting stage while your plant grows. During this time it will go through various stages, beginning with the Seedling Stage. Then after enough time has passed it becomes a fully mature plant. This is the best time to harvest since you gather the most resources in terms of wood, food etc along with seeds.

In the case of crops, harvesting it before it fully matures will get you its seed. Trees however don’t turn into seedlings. Harvesting the tree sapling will get you grass but no seeds. Trees also take longer than crops to fully mature. You can check at what stage in the growth cycle your plant is in by pointing your crosshair over it.

4 – Harvesting

Once the plant has matured, you can now harvest it simply by left-clicking on the target plant. You can harvest the plant by using either your bare fist or if you want to get it done faster, then the appropriate tool such as an axe or the much faster chainsaw especially if you’re trying to cut down a tree.

The amount of resources you yield upon harvesting is the same regardless of whether you used your bare hands or a tool. The yield amount upon harvest depends upon the level of Living off the Land Perk and Mother Lode Perk that you have unlocked. Trees upon harvest will give you wood plus its seed that you can plant again. Crops, however, when harvested, will go back to the Seedling Stage automatically and continue growing from there. This way when you plant crops you also get a continuous supply of food materials!

Yield Details For Trees, Plants & Crops

Trees

Trees are your primary source of wood in 7D2D. The amount of wood that you will yield upon harvesting a fully mature tree depends upon the type and size of the tree and also the level of Mother Lode Perk that you have unlocked. Harvesting a tree will also get you 2 seeds that you can plant again.

The table below shows you the time taken for different types of trees to become fully mature.

Plants & Crops

As we’d mentioned earlier, unlike trees, plants when harvested automatically return to the seedling stage and continue again from there. How much yield you get upon harvesting a mature crop depends upon the level of Living Off The Land Perk that you have unlocked.

The table below shows the growth time and the amount of yield you can harvest with different levels of Living Off The Land Perk for different types of crops.

Tips For Farming Crops

• One of the most useful crops to have is corn. The ear of the Corn is an ingredient that is part of multiple food recipes. You can use this to make a simple food item like Corn on the cob to highly nutritious food like Meat and Vegetable Stew. It can also be used to make cornmeal which can then be used in many recipes as the ones shown below:
• Blueberry Pie
• Plaster Cast
• Grain Alcohol (used to make First Aid Kit, Recog, Grandpa’s Moonshine)
• Fish Tacos
• Corn Bread
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Cheesecake
• If you also have Blueberries with Corn, then you can make Blueberry Pie which also fills you up! Blueberries can be found in the snow biome.
• Potato is another useful plant that can be either eaten raw or more efficiently used by baking it or if you have more ingredients, then make Stew!
• Cotton plants can be harvested to make cloth fragments which is useful for making items such as bandages, duct tape etc/
• Coffee plants can be used to then make some coffee which is very handy when you need that stamina boost!

Notes:

Pre Alpha 18, you could plant trees as well as crops anywhere out in the open land. No farm plots were needed for crops. Also you were required to till the land using a hoe before planting over it. These have changed since Alpha 19 as mentioned so far in this article.