Rice plant
Rice plant
A short, fast-growing crop that yields small edible grains. Its great nutritional output and ease of cultivation has made it the economic core of many great civilizations. While rice grows quickly, it is sensitive to soil fertility and will not fare well in poor soil.
Base Stats
Stat Modifiers
Rice plants grow faster, but provide less food per harvest, than any other crop. 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.
Comparison to Other Crops
Rice Plants' daily nutrition is slightly higher than corn (102.7%) and potatoes (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, it also means rice requires far more labour to reap and sow for the same nutrition compared to potatoes (183%) and especially corn (366%), and for this reason it is not usually recommended as the primary foodsource past midgame.
These strengths and weaknesses are multiplied in fertile soil and hydroponics basins.