Agricraft Crossbreeding for Newbies (A Reference Guide for the Rest Of Us!)
As an opening caveat, there are several config options which might significantly alter the mechanics and behavior of crossbreeding and hybridization. However, this guide should work ins *MOST* situations, because it takes into consideration the worst conditions set. Just be advised that if the advise found within this guide does not help, you may wish to review the config files or consult with your mod pack dev/server op for details on how the configs are set up.
Plus-size your plants
So, to get better raw stats, you need to crossbreed two (or more) of the SAME plant. The most efficient method I have found I like to call the 'plus sized method' because you take one block, plant crops in all four directions, wait for all four to mature fully, then plant a crops and cross-crops in the middle, making it look like a plus sign. Depending on your config settings, this might well be the only way to get it to work.
Also, depending on your config settings, you might start getting very upset that you get some very inferior seeds. In brief: you have a chance of getting numbers based on both the best and the worst plants in your four areas. It should, however, at least be marginally better than your worst plant. So what you do is take your worst plant, and replace it with this plant. Wait for it to mature. Then do it all over again. In most cases, this will have a bell curve of efficiency: in the early stages, you might see a rapid progression, however as you get up closer to a max plant, the improvement slows down dramatically. Keep pluggin' away at it, and eventually you should get 10:10:10 plants.
There are some significant advantages that this offers you as opposed to most other methods of hybridization:
* There is only ever a single 'empty' cross-crops at one time, minimizing the chance of weeds. Also, a cross-crops is only there if you are actively waiting for it to pop, meaning you are right on top of it to kill any weeds that might spring up. This makes it a very weed-resistant method of crossbreeding.
* Some config file settings require four 'parents' to get improvements in the new plant. However, even if it doesn't, you will get BETTER stats from having four parents than from having two or three, no matter what your config settings are at. So, either a) it becomes possible, or b) it becomes better. Either way, you maximize your chances of getting better plants.
There's no real way to fully automate this, unfortunately, however it should get your greatest returns for your attempt. Depending on your config files, you might find it easier to use another method (the 'field-fill method seems to work when you only need one 'parent' and weeds disabled), however these are more prone to not working under certain config settings and may even destroy everything if weeds are turned on.
In conclusion
I am by no means claiming that this is the 'best' method of crossbreeding. It is, however, one of the most reliable that I have found that minimizes any chances of having problems while maximizing stat-growth per iteration. It should at least work in virtually any config settings that I have tested it on.
