Minerals

The raw materials of the mineral fertilizer tree. The Fertilizer Mixer blends them into NPK products. Recipes take the conventional tags, so other mods' minerals work in their place.

Ores need a stone pickaxe and are tagged c:ores, c:ores/<mineral> and c:ores_in_ground/<stone>. Silk Touch keeps the block, and smelting or blasting a block gives one mineral.

Wood ash is the T0 input. Right-click a growing medium with it for +4 K, +0.5 P, a slightly higher pH and a little salt. It also smelts into potash.

Without our ores (worldgen.<mineral> = false, for example in a pack where Thermal, Mekanism or IE provide the same minerals), the tags pick up the other mods' items. Potash also comes from wood ash. From the Regular reputation tier, the Dealer sells all four minerals.

Config (worldgen section): saltpeter, apatite, potash and sulfur, each true by default. The placement modifier plantations:ore_enabled checks them, so the switches work without editing biome modifiers.

#Fertilizers

The Fertilizer Mixer blends minerals into fertilizer. It has three input slots that take the tags c:dusts/saltpeter (N), c:gems/apatite (P) and c:dusts/potash (K), and one output slot.

• Set the parts per nutrient (0–4) with − and + on the screen. One batch takes that many of each.
• Power a batch with the Crank button (4 turns per batch, and each turn makes you a little hungry), or with FE from cables (10 FE/t, 100 ticks per batch).
• Hoppers fill the inputs from the top and sides and take the output from the bottom.
• A part setting with a plantations:fertilizer_blend recipe makes that product: Grow at 3:1:1 (2 bags) and Bloom at 1:2:3 (2 bags). Any other setting makes one Custom Fertilizer bag. The bag carries its mix, is tinted by it (green N, blue P, red K) and applies 4 points per part plus 1 salinity per part.

{ "type": "plantations:fertilizer_blend", "parts": { "n": 3, "p": 1, "k": 1 },
  "result": { "id": "plantations:grow_fertilizer", "count": 2 } }

Crafted products:

Mineral feeding is fast, but salts build up. Above 60 salinity the soil burns roots (up to −60 % uptake), and every point of salt kills soil life (see SOIL.md). That is the trade-off against the living-soil tree.

#Hydroponics

Soilless growing: a Reservoir of nutrient solution, a Pump and Drip Lines feeding Hydro Trays.

• Reservoir: holds 16 000 mB. Fill it with water by bucket or pipes (fluid capability; it only takes water in). Right-click it with fertilizer (Grow, Bloom, Cal-Mag, Custom) or pH Up/Down to dissolve it. An empty hand shows the volume, N/P/K per 1000 mB, pH and EC (mS/cm, from the dissolved salts).
• Pump: place it next to a Reservoir and a Drip Line. Every 2 s, each growing medium on the line network below 70 moisture gets a 250 mB dose, for 200 FE each. Power it with FE from cables, or right-click it with furnace fuel (10 FE per burn tick, 32 000 FE buffer). An empty hand shows the energy and how many media it reaches.
• Drip Line: thin tubing that connects to other lines and to the pump. Every growing medium beside or under a line is fed: Hydro Trays, but also garden beds and pots.
• Hydro Tray: clay pebbles with no nutrients, no organic matter and no soil life, so it lives on the solution. It holds half as much as a garden bed and dries out fast. Without soil life its quality cap is 80 %.

Each dose brings its share of the solution's nutrients. It moves the medium's pH halfway to the solution's, and its salinity halfway to twice the solution's salt concentration. A weak solution flushes salts out, and an overdosed one builds them up. The setup runs unattended until the reservoir is empty.

#Industrial tier

Machines for a grow room that runs itself. All of them run on FE from cables, take items through hoppers (in from the top and sides, out from the bottom), and light up while they work. Right-click with an empty hand to take the output out, or to see the status. They have no screens.

The Fertilizer Mixer's slots take the tags plantations:fertilizer_inputs/nitrogen (c:dusts/saltpeter and Urea), .../phosphorus (c:gems/apatite and Superphosphate) and .../potassium (c:dusts/potash).

The processes are abstract game machines, not real chemistry. Mekanism hydrogen comes with the Mekanism integration.