Reducing field upkeep

[charlieq]

Hi there, this is probably going to sound super noobish but I'm new to farming and a lot of guides are telling me to use wood choppings in order the reduce their upkeep. Whenever I try to do this, however, the choppings just don't register with the field. I'm left clicking the woddchoppings then right clicking the field, but the choppings are never removed from my invent, and the upkeep is never reduced. Is there something I'm just not getting? I've tried tilling a few more fields but it just never seems to work.

Do I have to use my humus first?
Do I alternate humus with the wood choppings?
Is there some secret method that I'm completely oblivious to?

Thanks for any help!

[JinxDevona]

No matter what you must always get a field ready by adding humus before adding anything to it. Then you must plant the seeds. An unkept field requires 5 humus. Then you may start adding woodchips until the upkeep drops to 50%. After you harvest you will only need 2 humus on a 50% upkeep field. Then when you plant your seeds, you will see the upkeep has gone up to 55%. So everytime you plant, you will need to bring it back down to 50%.

[staxjax]

1)Humus empty field.
2)Plant seeds.
3)Drop 10 woodchips on the planted field to bring upkeep to 50%.

[charlieq]

Ahhh, it worked! Thanks a lot for the help

[Wournos]

Question:
Have the effectiveness of woodchips been changed recently? I just added some to my new fields to reduce upkeep and they went straight to -2% instead of a much higher number just a week ago. I've spent more than 20 woodchips and I still haven't reached 50% upkeep yet.

Edit:
I added to a cotton field. Now that I add woodchips to a new cabbage field the number starts at -4 and slowly decreases.

[Cawalox]

Each additional use of fertilizer is less effective than previous one. So if you add hay and than wood choppings youll wont get max effect.
You can see how effective fertilizer will be here http://salemwiki.info/index.php/Wood_Choppings

[robert]

at 0 fertilizer used 1 wood chop can do about -10. they drop as low as -1 point. typically you would plant cereal first as it grows fastest and unless you have a town with seeds to start.. is typically cheaper to buy from npc stall or players.

after that is harvested you only need about 5 wood chops to reset the 5 points you gain replanting.. assuming you do not use choppings first thing, as that would lower the better fertilizers you would want to use on the 2nd planting of the field. also having three fields i think improves the amount they lower by. as iv had -1% actually take off 2% some how unless it was 1.5% and i had 52% so it just rounded up to -2%...

but ya brand new field you do
1) 5 humus
2) seeds (typically 50 cereal)
3) 10 or so wood choppings to drop to 50% upkeep
4) harvest.

then replant and use 3 humus and 5 choppings or so (if you use choppings last after you fertilize what you want to increase "plenty/influence/speed" they are less effective but its better to do it last)

[Wournos]

Ok. Maybe I added them in the wrong order then. I used both hay and choppings (20 or so) and I used the choppings last.
Thanks for the replies.

[imrielle]

Fresh field: 10 wood choppings will reduce it to 50%.
Replanting: Three fertilizers, then one wood chopping, will get you back to 50% upkeep. Four fertilizers would require 2, and so on (assuming, of course, that the field was at 55% upkeep from a previous wood choppings spree).

[Jalpha]

Can you actually use three fertilizers before the first woodchip? I think I tried it a while ago and actually ended up reducing upkeep by something ridiculous like 4.97326% (despite the displayed value registering as a clean 50%) which was kind of annoying because then I would need stacks of 26 seeds even though it would only use 25 to plant.

I guess this would work out slightly more efficient in the long run, but eventually I imagine the field upkeep would drop to 51% after the woodchip.