Automatic tree farm

[qw6722]

Hello! I am new to the forestry mod and I heard there was a way to make an automatic tree farm. After searching through YouTube and Google, all I have found were videos of tree farms in action or semi-automatic farms but I have found no tutorial on how to make a fully automatic one.
If somebody would be kind enough to post instructions on how to make one or post a link to a tutorial it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SilvasRuin]

Make a Steve's Cart with storage, primary solar engine, secondary coal engine, give it a logging saw, the track cleaning module, and a sapling planting module, lay a large track loop for it, set up an advanced detector rail and cargo manager for it to extract the excess saplings, apples, and wood while making sure it keeps enough saplings to continue replanting and throws some wood into the coal engine to keep it running. Probably the easiest maintenance free tree farm to set up.

 

[Rikki21]

Waah. Easiest? It requires 6 diamonds to make that wood cutter.

Although, once you get those diamonds it is arguably better than forestry by far. Especially since it can work via solar power.

Here is a video with monkeyfarm, Docm77, and Direwolf20 regarding an automatic farm with forestry, though it's rather old.

 

[SilvasRuin]

Easiest to automate. Not the cheapest to make.

 

[Karzack]

Make a Steve's Cart with storage, primary solar engine, secondary coal engine, give it a logging saw, the track cleaning module, and a sapling planting module, lay a large track loop for it, set up an advanced detector rail and cargo manager for it to extract the excess saplings, apples, and wood while making sure it keeps enough saplings to continue replanting and throws some wood into the coal engine to keep it running. Probably the easiest maintenance free tree farm to set up.

Curious. Why the track cleaning module? Sapling drops? I've set up a few of Steve's tree farms, but never bothered to add this to the cart.

 

[SilvasRuin]

If I understand it right, it sucks up any items that fall on the rails, which could normally get in the way of a cart and stop it.

 

[qw6722]

Thank you. I'll try the Steve's cart method. The one direwolf20 made is very good but you still need to supply it with humus and coal

 

[Larroke]

bah.. I set a turtle to disassembling a fir tree/jungle tree/redwood tree, dump, replant and wait for growth if it doesn't have bonemeal

each fir tree is about 3 stacks of wood and 30 seconds or so, and from my tests they grow at least once in a cycle (10 minutes).

I'll automate it a bit and when I need more wood / charcoal etc I'll have a system to feed it bone meal, and then use a refueling station rather then charcoal.

I do like the thought of steve's carts though.. I may set it up to grow the vanilla trees so I always have a stock of each tree type laying about.

 

[Yusunoha]

Make a Steve's Cart with storage, primary solar engine, secondary coal engine, give it a logging saw, the track cleaning module, and a sapling planting module, lay a large track loop for it, set up an advanced detector rail and cargo manager for it to extract the excess saplings, apples, and wood while making sure it keeps enough saplings to continue replanting and throws some wood into the coal engine to keep it running. Probably the easiest maintenance free tree farm to set up.

if you want to make it as cheap as possible, do a coal engine, wood cutter and side chests. if you want to spend some more, you could add a solar engine as primary, a few internal storages, a fertilizer and a chunkloader.

you don't need the track cleaning module, just set the tracks up in a circle and the sapplings get automatically planted with the wood cutter.

Waah. Easiest? It requires 6 diamonds to make that wood cutter.

Although, once you get those diamonds it is arguably better than forestry by far. Especially since it can work via solar power.

Here is a video with monkeyfarm, Docm77, and Direwolf20 regarding an automatic farm with forestry, though it's rather old.

yes, 6 diamonds, but did you check how much it costs to make a arboretum and a logger?

bah.. I set a turtle to disassembling a fir tree/jungle tree/redwood tree, dump, replant and wait for growth if it doesn't have bonemeal

each fir tree is about 3 stacks of wood and 30 seconds or so, and from my tests they grow at least once in a cycle (10 minutes).

I'll automate it a bit and when I need more wood / charcoal etc I'll have a system to feed it bone meal, and then use a refueling station rather then charcoal.

I do like the thought of steve's carts though.. I may set it up to grow the vanilla trees so I always have a stock of each tree type laying about.

you can do alot with CC, sadly, not everyone can code, like me...

 

[KriiEiter]

Be careful when using a solar engine because the leaves from the trees can stall one out occasionally.

 

[Yusunoha]

Be careful when using a solar engine because the leaves from the trees can stall one out occasionally.

yes, that's why you should use a coal engine as a backup and the solar as primary.
also a thing I did in my test world was I placed an advanced detector rail, which needs a redstone signal to let the cart pass, if there's no redstone signal, the cart will simply be put in rest mode.
to that ADR I have set a Light Sensor, which will send out a redstone signal when it has enough light going to it (leaves don't affect it and you can adjust the setting using a screwdriver)

what happens it when it becomes night the cart will drive over the ADR which will not have a redstone signal coming from the Light Sensor because it's dark, and the cart gets put in rest mode.
thanks to that you can save up on coal in the coal engine, and you don't really need the cart running anyways since trees won't really grow. and as soon as it becomes light, the Light Sensor gives off a redstone signal, and the cart continues with it's work.

 

[SilvasRuin]

Aha! I've been wondering for a while if there was a way to tell a Steve's Cart to shut off and not waste fuel, but thought the Advanced Detector Rail was only to make the cart wait until its interaction with the Steve's Carts blocks is done. Thank you for that.

 

[Malkeus Diasporan]

I made a similar setup Yusunoha, but I didn't want to lose productivity during the night, so i placed torches in the spaces between saplings. To conserve fuel, I setup a simple delay program on a cc computer coupled with a detector rail and advanced detector rail.
Immediately after unloading at a cargo manager, the cart would hit the detector rail, triggering the computer delay, then the cart would stop on an advanced detector rail next to the computer. After a delay of 3 minutes(configurable), the computer would send a redstone signal to the adv. detector rail, sending the cart on its merry way.

Configurable TimeDelay: cZZy3pvB . I know its very simple, but its come in handy for me in various ways.

 

[b0bst3r]

I've been spending my time waiting for the ultimate pack on the MindCrack pack automating forestry farms and production with Redpower (cos I'm a RP nut and anti BC piper and cos I can). Lots of people said it couldn't be done due to the nature of the way the inventories of the carpenter, fermenter and moisteners work, but managers change that.

It's really expensive but now I figured it all out I can begin to streamline the process and remove un-necessary pipes/machines and move them about to make it more productive. The bottom line is when I'm happy it's all working right there will be videos coming on how to do it all.

 

[frederikam]

If you want a really cheap but hard to set up tree farm, make a solar felling turtle. Well that is quite hard to make, but i just finished my own code so i can use it in future worlds. It can even go back to work after getting unloaded.

 

[Evil Hamster]

Waah. Easiest? It requires 6 diamonds to make that wood cutter.

Although, once you get those diamonds it is arguably better than forestry by far. Especially since it can work via solar power.

Here is a video with monkeyfarm, Docm77, and Direwolf20 regarding an automatic farm with forestry, though it's rather old.

And it takes 5 diamonds to make a logger (though you do have one diamond electron tube leftover so your 4th logger will be "free"), not to mention all the other machines you have to set up for hummus production, distribution of items, etc. The cart method looks much simpler to set up if you don't already have wheat and peat farms, a moistener, and the buildcraft system set up to power it all.

 

[thatsIch]

If you still search for a method to use forestry to automate your wood production:
you can get dirt from macerating dirt balls which you can create from crafting saplings. With dirt and wheat you can craft humus.
Arboretum and Logger can be powered by solar panel and one electric engine

 

[Celestialphoenix]

1 logger, running off either a biogas engine on milk, or a stirling (stone) engine on lava buckets. both will make 1MJ/t for a very long time on 1 bucket of fuel. (1 MJ/t is all you need)

mount some RP relays on the side of the logger, and connect up your tubes (logger ejects into relays->tubes), filter off the saplings to some deployers next to the logger, and pulse them every few minutes.
send the wood/spare saplings/fruit to wherever you want.

Probably the most fuel efficient and lag free combined. Fairly easy to make too.
(Steves carts in a pain to set up) If you want to scrap it, the parts can be used for other things.

 

[Edrosty]

The best one I've seen that completely runs on its own power, on biogas engines, is one I saw Etho make in his Feed The Beast episodes. It looked REALLY good, so if you want, I'd advise going back to his videos and doing a short bit of digging to take a look at his insane setup.

 

[iN3RDDannyx]

Here is my stevecarts tree farm