Rice plant

Rice plants yield rice. They grow faster but provide less food per harvest than any other crop, meaning your grower must work harder to get more. Therefore, rice will often be the first crop planted, but then, once a food reserve has been established, rice will be gradually phased out in favor of other crops that are better long-term producers (see Analysis, below).

Each plant has a base maturation time of 3 days (or 5.54 days when accounting for nightly resting period) and provides 6 rice per harvest.

Advantages

Grows quickly, so food supply is consistent
Grows well in rich soil and hydroponics

Disadvantages

Grows poorly in gravel
Yields little rice per harvest
Very labor-intensive

Usage

Start off your food production by growing this first.
Grow in hydroponics basins for rapid production.

Growing

Ground Type	Gravel	Soil	Rich Soil	Hydroponics
Fertility (%)	70	100	140	280
Real Grow Time (days)^[1]	7.91	5.54	3.96	1.98
Base Yield/day^[2]	0.76	1.08	1.52	3.03

↑ Actual days to grow, taking into account rest time.
↑ Per plant, assuming Crop Yield Multiplier of 1.0.
Note that Difficulty settings change the Crop Yield Multiplier.

Analysis

Rice plants' daily nutrition is fractionally higher than corn and potatoes (102.7% and 105.4% in regular soil), however rice's greatest strength is its quick growth: the short maturation time makes it ideal for establishing a colony, as an 'emergency' food crop when food runs low, for biomes with short growing seasons, and as a 'last planting' crop when winter is fast approaching. The frequent harvests also mitigate the damage of losing of a crop to blight, cold snap, heat wave, or fire, and provides a steadier flow of nutrition than slower-growing crops.

However, this also means rice requires far more labor to reap and sow for the same nutrition compared to potatoes (183%) and especially corn (366%). The increased food per work of corn means that in most colonies the loss in nutrition per day per tile that rice offers can be replaced by simply planting more tiles of corn with the saved labor, and free up grower time in the process. For this reason rice is not usually recommended as the primary foodsource past midgame unless the colony is limited by growing space and must be extract the maximum nutrition per tile.

While rice is no more affected by soil fertility than corn, the innate strengths and weaknesses of its short harvest cycles are magnified by higher fertility, providing even faster production but demanding even more labor to harvest and then sow again. For example,while rice provides significantly more nutrition over time than any other hydroponics basin crop, it requires a harvest and replant every other day to do so.

Version history

0.9.722 - added.

Plants

Domesticated plants: Cocoa tree • Corn plant • Cotton plant • Devilstrand mushroom • Haygrass • Healroot • Hop plant • Potato plant • Psychoid plant • Rice plant • Smokeleaf plant • Strawberry plant • Tinctoria • Fibercorn • Gauranlen pod • Nutrifungus • Toxipotato plant
Decorative plants: Dandelions • Daylily • Rose • Bonsai tree
Wild plants: Agarilux • Agave • Alocasia • Ambrosia bush • Astragalus • Berry bush • Brambles • Bryolux • Bush • Chokevine • Clivia • Giant rafflesia • Glowstool • Grass • Low shrubs • Moss • Pincushion cactus • Tall grass • Wild healroot • Anima grass • Gauranlen moss
Trees: Bamboo tree • Birch tree • Cecropia tree • Cypress tree • Drago tree • Maple tree • Oak tree • Palm tree • Pine tree • Poplar tree • Saguaro cactus • Teak tree • Willow tree • Timbershroom • Gray pine tree • Pebble cactus • Rat palm tree • Witchwood tree
Special: Anima tree • Gauranlen tree • Polux tree • Harbinger tree
Tree stumps: Burned stump • Chopped stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger ) • Smashed stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger )

[1] Actual days to grow, taking into account rest time.

[2] Per plant, assuming Crop Yield Multiplier of 1.0.
Note that Difficulty settings change the Crop Yield Multiplier.

[1]

[2]