Is this intended behavior for flax plants?

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BrickVoid

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Dec 2, 2012
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I've been growing flax plants for string which they produce a lot of if you harvest both the top and bottom parts of the plant. However, there is a problem with the flax plants in that the harvested bottom half looks very similar to the penultimate growth stage of the flax plant.

I have also noticed and checked using bonemeal that if you leave a harvested bottom half of a flax plant around that it will not grow a new top half of the flax plant under any circumstances.

I'm using the Mindcrack FTB modpack and no I'm not one of the Mindcrackers, just a YouTube viewer of their channels. I have some questions for anyone who has experience with this particular modpack and flax seeds:

1. If I set up an automated planter from Forestry, which planter do I need to use for flax seeds? I can't seem to find easily accessible information on the internet about which planter should be used with which seed type, and want to make sure this is accurate for the modpack I'm currently using.

2. If I set up the correct planter above, which harverser harvests the flax plants, and does it automatically chop the flax plants correctly? It should either chop the bottom part or both the top and bottom parts, which will automatically drop both parts of the plant when fully grown. NOTE: "Harverser" is apparently misspelled that way in the modpack itself, not a typo of mine, I'm just using the exact same term they use to avoid confusion for anyone looking for it.

I'm not familiar with automated flax plant harvesting, preferring to manually plant out as needed in the early stages, but I'd like to investigate the flax plants for the large amount of seeds they produce, amongst other things, so I was wondering if the automated planters will properly harvest the flax plants. If not, I think there's a bug with the flax plants, as they would generate lots of plants on an automatic farm which would clog the automatic farms if not correctly harvested.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid
 
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graydaze

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've heard they do grow back very slowly, but i never seen it personally. Oh I don't think flax is compatible with forestry, you'll have to automate it another way. Blockbreakers and deployers and pretty common to use.
 
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WTFFFS

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Jul 29, 2019
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Flax does not regrow from just the bottom half of the plant, I'm not certain that the Forestry farm is capable of growing Flax it may be since they have been playing together for a long time but I do know that other mod "farming" machines do not handle flax (Steves Carts specifically) but even if the Forestry farm cannot plant Flax the Combine may be able to harvest it but once again I am not 100% certain. Truthfully given the extremely long time for Flax to grow to maturity a Seedbag and Sickle from RP2 itself is probably the most efficient method of Flax farming in any case I use a 9x18 Field with a Sorting machine\chest nearby to dump the string\seeds after harvest, it takes a few minutes to manually harvest the entire field and replant. Using this method i have 2 Barrels full of seeds\string from 3 harvests at most.

A possibility is a single block "farm" using RP2 Deployer\bonemeal\blockbreaker and a few logic tiles, there are tutorials here and there on youtube for various wheat farms of this style which could fairly easily be modified for Flax.(very old vid but the system is still likely valid String Farm )
 
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Dravarden

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Jul 29, 2019
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Yeah, my flax farm when i break only the top it never grows back, you need to break also the bottom and replant.
 
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Bagman817

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Jul 29, 2019
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Dravarden said:
Yeah, my flax farm when i break only the top it never grows back, you need to break also the bottom and replant.
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Same. I assume it's a bug, but one we have to deal with. On the upside, the new seed bag makes planting pretty painless.
 
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WTFFFS

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Jul 29, 2019
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Afaik it's not a bug just a limitation of having a 2 block high plant, you could specify that any block in the structure breaks all blocks but why complicate the code when vanilla has the "bottom block breaks all above" already in place. IRL the stem is processed for the fibres and the flowerheads contain the seeds so it makes sense for the flowerhead to not regrow considering it's an annual (grows, flowers, dies) and considering Eloraam's habit of emulating real life mechanics (within reason).
 
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Bagman817

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Jul 29, 2019
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WTFFFS said:
Afaik it's not a bug just a limitation of having a 2 block high plant, you could specify that any block in the structure breaks all blocks but why complicate the code when vanilla has the "bottom block breaks all above" already in place. IRL the stem is processed for the fibres and the flowerheads contain the seeds so it makes sense for the flowerhead to not regrow considering it's an annual (grows, flowers, dies) and considering Eloraam's habit of emulating real life mechanics (within reason).
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I'll concede the possibility, but I find it difficult to believe that Eloraam would give us a way to harvest a plant and then say "Surprise! This will never regrow!" without being a little more explicit about it.
 
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laton95

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Jul 29, 2019
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I think she said in one of dire's vids that it was intentional that the flax would not regrow.
 
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BrickVoid

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Dec 2, 2012
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I've seen videos that show Thaumcraft golem workers harvest them, the straw golem IIRC. I may consider doing Thaumcraft for them because there's also a golem that will fetch their drops and pop them into a chest. Many thanks to all who replied, I haven't really had a lot of time to get into either RedPower or Thaumcraft and mostly just wanted a fairly simple way of getting string. The bonus of course with flax is that you can get seeds which can be turned into biomass as a side product.

Regarding what Eloraam said about the flax plants, has she said explicitly anywhere that the top half being harvested leaves the bottom half or given any reason as to why it's programmed this way? It seems ridiculous to me to intentionally not automate something that should be automatic, since the whole point of most farming add-ons is to automate some process. Maybe she should fine-tune the flax seed drops just a little, as it is, it's an excellent source of biomass. But personally, I don't care much anyway about having excess biomass, it's just a matter of voiding out unneeded excess at an obvious end point.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid
 
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WTFFFS

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Jul 29, 2019
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The best Flax Farm (since a recent update to TC3) is def Golem powered with a Xeno's Reliquary Lilypad or 2, you will have more string\seeds than you will ever know what to do with very very very quickly.
 
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egor66

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Jul 29, 2019
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The plant will NOT regrown if the top half is harvested, you need to harvest the bottom & only the bottom "as when you take the bottom the top comes too" this can be done manually & replanted quickly with a seed bag, golums or turtles will automate farming for you.
 
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NJM1564

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Jul 29, 2019
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XYcraft is going to be adding a block that will when planted on increase the speed at which a plant grows. And further increases it for every one of those blocks stacked under it. :)
 
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NTaylor

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Jul 29, 2019
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WTFFFS said:
The best Flax Farm (since a recent update to TC3) is def Golem powered with a Xeno's Reliquary Lilypad or 2, you will have more string\seeds than you will ever know what to do with very very very quickly.
Click to expand...

TBH a sickle and a seed bag seems to give me more seeds and string than I can store easily I end up with an ED barrel full of each after a while. Simply harvesting it all whenever I need some string.
 
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WTFFFS

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Jul 29, 2019
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NTaylor said:
TBH a sickle and a seed bag seems to give me more seeds and string than I can store easily I end up with an ED barrel full of each after a while. Simply harvesting it all whenever I need some string.
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My ED string Barrel is full, I've been recycling Flax Seeds since very shortly after the update to TC3 (haven't bothered EDing that barrel) and I have 396 Impregnated Frames in another ED barrel (made from watermelon seeds, the melon seeds are from 2 rows which share my flax harvesting Golems time the farm is 13X18, so 2 9x9 Flax Fields and the 2 rows of melons) I have 2 lilypads in the area mostly covering the melons. Annnnd I have to do precisely nothing :D
 
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