You don't have to feed 'em, but...

A lot of growers ask about feeding their ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ plants.  As most of y'all already know, ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ does not require Plant Food to grow and breed.  But Plant Food is an important part of a grower's toolkit for an enjoyable, easier-to-manage pharming operation.

It helps to understand a little about plants' growth rates.  Each variety has its unique growth rate, and that shows in both the hovertext over plants and in the stats output in local chat.  Plants go through a growth cycle every 90 minutes until they reach 100 percent size.

"Very fast" growing plants increase five percent every growth cycle, "fast" plants grow four percent, "medium" plants grow three percent, and "slow" plants grow two percent.  The slowest growth rate is "very slow" or one percent of the plant's height per growth cycle.  The important point is that plants only grow at their "advertised" rate if they are fed.  Unfed plants grow at one percent per cycle.

(Yes, that means there would be no advantage in feeding a "very slow" plant variety, except that there aren't any "very slow" varieties!)

Now, what this means is that an unfed plant, regardless of what variety it is, will take 100 growth cycles to mature.  At 90 minutes per cycle, that means that without Plant Food, ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ plants take a little more than 6 days to reach the flowering phase.  (Plants start at one percent rather than zero when they are germinated, and SL clocks are notoriously wonky, so let's say "about six days!")

By comparison, a "very fast" plant variety such as Big Bud or NY Diesel will grow five times faster if you feed it.  They would reach maturity in only 30 hours.  Normally, growers may think this is way to fast to be enjoyable or manageable, but let's consider how you might use food to keep a grow going...

(If you think five percent is fast, remember that indoor/outdoor varieties grow an additional two percent faster if they are within 3 meters of a Grow-Lite.  If you place a NY Diesel under lights and feed it, that plant will grow at seven percent per cycle and be flowering in only  21 hours! So unless you are into "speed breeding," you'll probably want to keep those indoor/outdoor plants away from lights if you feed them!)

Once they are flowering, ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ plants live for six days or until they are harvested, whichever comes first.  Mature flowering plants don't need food, and there's no option in the menu to feed them!

Most breeders are eager to harvest their females to see how the hybrids turn out, but males are viable for breeding during this entire period.  So you can use Plant Food to get another generation to maturity to breed with that prize male you have before he goes to the great ashtray in the sky.  By the same token, if you have a batch of females nearing maturity but don't have a mature male, you might pause the females (make them dormant) and then feed a male to get him to mature faster.  Then resume growth for your females and harvest your hybrids!

A single click on the "feed" button on the plant menu or your HUD will feed the plants for 8 cycles.  You do not have to feed plants for the full vegetative phase.  In the Skunk Works lab, we like to feed all plants for the first 8 cycles just to get them big enough to look nice.  Then we keep feeding some of them and don't feed others, depending on how we want to "pace" the maturity of the crop.

So yes, Plant Food isn't required for your ḈḁṇṇḁḇḭṦḼ babies.  You may be very happy with the one percent growth rate, and that's all good.  But remember, Plant Food is your tool to ensure that you have the males and females you want ready to breed at the same time!  And of course, like I mentioned before, if you're into "speed breeding" to get into multiple generations faster, food's the route to go!

Until next time - Happy Growing!