Nutrifungus

Nutrifungus grows on lichen-covered soil and must be planted in and stay in complete darkness. So long as the darkness requirement is met, it can be grown in any terrain that is sufficiently fertile to support a growing zone. This includes, but is not limited to, fungal gravel and hydroponics basins. Due to its low fertility sensitivity, it takes fewer penalties from poorer soils than more sensitive plants, but also benefits less from being in hydroponics. Nutrifungus is immune to blight. An interesting exception to the rule that Nutrifungus can only grow in darkness is when planted around other mushroom-like emitters of light, such as Bryolux, Agarilux, or Glowstool.

Note that most ideoligions hate eating raw fungus.

Growing[edit]

Ground Type	Gravel	Soil	Rich Soil	Hydroponics
Fertility (%)	70	100	140	280
Real Grow Time (days)^[1]	11.6	11.08	10.45	8.72
Base Yield/day^[2]	0.95	0.99	1.05	1.26

↑ 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[edit]

As an actual food crop, nutrifungus is nearly identical to potato plants. Nutrifungus takes 103.4% the time to grow for the exact same yield as potatoes, and their yield per work is identical. Nutrifungus also has low fertility sensitivity, so it grows slightly faster than potatoes if in poor soil.

If the colony has an ideoligion with the Tunneler meme, it is almost a no-brainer to grow nutrifungus, as raw fungus provides a +3 mood boost and other plant food provides a −3 moodlet. Tunneler colonies may want to grow rice plants at the very beginning, since rice grows faster and doesn't require roofing, but should switch to fungus quickly.

For other colonies, there are two main downsides of growing nutrifungus:

Nutrifungus must grow in darkness. A baseline pawn works 80% as fast in the dark, unless this penalty is negated by the Lighting: Darklight Preferred precept or Dark vision gene, making nutrifungus take more time to sow/harvest. In addition, since nutrifungus is generally grown inside, dirt's beauty penalty applies often causing the need to drop to zero for pawns farming it without sculptures nearby, this includes the −4 beauty raw fungus as an item creates.
Non-Tunneler ideoligions dislike eating raw fungus, with a −3 moodlet when cooked. This is a minor penalty but one that can be easily avoided by growing other crops.

Therefore, potatoes are generally a superior crop for standard colonies. The main reason why a non-Tunneler colony would grow nutrifungus over other crops is that it can grow indoors without needing a sun lamp, thus providing a cheap and easily accessible way to grow food in the winter, permanent darkness, or under a mountain - see below for details.

Nutrifungus will not die when exposed to very cold temperatures (similar to healroot), though it still requires temperatures above 0 °C (32 °F) to grow.

Indoor farming[edit]

Even without the Tunneler meme, fungus can be worthwhile to sow. This is because nutrifungus can be grown in darkness, which lets you grow indoors without needing a sun lamp. Being indoors, in turn, lets you use heaters to control the temperature, and grow crops during the winter without needing a power hungry sun lamp. Therefore, it is a cost effective way to grow year-round, and it can allow pre-Electricity tribals to grow year-round too. Also since it grows indoors or in caves, it is considerably harder for raiders to set alight than other chemfuel feedstocks.

It can also be grown freely if you are forced to (or want to) live under a sun blocker or in a glowforest biome. With a sun blocker, you'll still need to place a roof over the growing area for colonists to actually plant the crop.