Ark: Survival Evolved Farming Guide

Ark: Survival Evolved farming tips to help you farm crops with irrigation tips, seeds planting tips, and an overview of farming structures.

In Ark: Survival Evolved, while farming you can collect seeds from Wild Vegetation, plant them on the farms, water them, use fertilizers, and you’ll acquire rare fruits in no time.

You can use the fruits to cook consumable recipes, tonics, and so much more. It’s encouraged to explore the wilderness of the world and acquire all sorts of rare seeds to help you in your farming.

Hence, it’s not necessary to kill all sorts of creatures to survive in Ark: Survival Evolved.

Best Creatures for Farming in Ark Survival Evolved

According to our research, Equus and Parasaur are the best creatures to you for farming in Ark Survival Evolved. Equus is a horse in Ark that reduces the weight of Stone, Sand, and Cactus.

Equus can be used for rescuing other players in deep pits or catching and pulling small or medium-sized creatures to be fed and tamed with a Lasso.

Ride them on their backs and feed them passively. Like a Mortar and Pestle, the saddle can be used as a toolkit.

Early in the game, you are likely to encounter Parasaur. When faced with anything they consider dangerous, they run away skittishly. They’re cowardly because they can sense dangerous creatures from a distance, explaining their spontaneous behavior.

This instinct can be implemented by the Survivor by setting a tame Parasaur into Turret mode, which allows him to see where nearby dangers and intruders are. Owners of Parasaurs receive signals that help them prepare their defenses.

Types of seeds in Ark Survival Evolved

One important thing to note about seeds is that different types of seeds are compatible with different types of farming plots. Following is an overview of different seed types and their compatible farm plots:

Small Crop Plots – these plots support all types of Berry Seeds such as Amarberry Seed, Azulberry Seed, Mejoberry Seed, Narcoberry Seed, Tintoberry Seed, Stimberry Seed

Medium Crop Plots – these plots support Savoroot, Longrass, Rockarrot, Citronal, and everything mentioned under Small Crop Plots

Large Crop Plots – these plots are compatible with everything

Seeds

  • Berry Bush Seeds
  • Azulberry Seeds
  • Amarberry Seeds
  • Tintoberry Seeds
  • Citronal Seeds
  • Mejoberry Seeds
  • Narcoberry Seeds
  • Stimberry Seeds
  • Savaroot Seeds
  • Longgrass Seeds
  • Rockarrot Seeds

To plant a seed in a plot, you need to open up the Plot Inventory screen and choose the desired item from your storage. After planting, use water which will add your plot to the ‘Seeded’ phase.

Seed Gatherers

Seed gatherers are a way to collect seeds in Ark Survival evolved. Creatures you can use to collect seeds include Brontosaurus, Mammoth, Therizinosaur, Iguanodon, Morellatops, and Triceratops.  You can also use these creatures to collect barry.

Using Water

Aside from rainwater (which automatically fills up your plots), you can collect it by hand or by irrigation. To collect water by hand, you will require a water container such as a Waterskin.

Once you have filled up your Waterskin, place it in your plot’s inventory and click ‘Remote Item Use’. Selecting this option will empty all the water in the Waterskin into your plot.

To collect water by irrigation, you will need a working Tap placed near the plot. The Tap must be connected to an Intake Pipe or a Water Tank which must have some water inside.

You will know that everything is working in the correct order if you see ‘Irrigated’ under your plot’s HUD.

Finally, do note that Small Crop Plots can only hold 200 units of water and Medium Crop Plots can only hold 400 units of water. As for Large Crop Plots, we don’t have sufficient information available!

Pipes

You’ll need a working tap near your plot if you want to fill it by irrigation. Unless a tap is connected properly to an Intake Pipe or a Water Reservoir, it is only considered working if it has water inside.

If a water source is connected correctly, it will turn blue rather than its normal gray color. This will indicate that water is flowing through the pipe.

To fill with rain or snow, the crop box must have unobstructed access to the sky or have a water tap connected to a Water Reservoir that is outside where rainwater can be collected.

Even in places like The Center, where it rains a lot, rain and snow alone cannot provide adequate water.

The crop box must be open to the sky or connected to an outdoor reservoir with water taps that can catch rainwater if the crop box is to be filled by rain or snow.

Using Fertilizers

You can use Human as well as Dinosaurs fecal matter as fertilizers for your crops. To add fertilizer to your plot, simply open up your plot’s inventory screen and add the fertilizer from your storage.

After this, you can open up your plot’s HUD to see your crop’s total ‘Fertilizer value. Following is an overview of every fertilizer in the game:

  • Human Feces – it adds 1,000 points when added to a Small Crop Plot
  • Small Dinosaurs Feces – it adds 2,500 points when added to a Small Crop Plot
  • Medium Dinosaurs Feces – it adds 5,000 points, spoils in 01:24:10, and decomposes in 01:00
  • Large Dinosaurs Feces – it adds 10,000 points when added
  • Fertilizer – it adds 60,000 points when added

How to harvest

Do note that the growth and harvest of a crop greatly depend upon water and fertilizer availability. In case you are lacking in one of the two components, your crops’ growth rate will begin to dwindle.

There are a total of 5 stages in farming with last the step being Fruiting. Once your crops reach the final stage, you will be able to harvest food and new seeds from your crops.

In order to harvest, you simply need to remove the crops from the plot’s inventory screen.

Creating Farming Structures

Small Crop Plot

Components: 20x Wood + 10x Thatch + 15x Fiber + 25x Stone

Medium Crop Plot

Components: 40x Wood + 20x Thatch + 30x Fiber + 50x Stone

Large Crop Plot

Components: 80x Wood + 40x Thatch + 60x Fiber + 100x Stone

Compost Bin
Components: 50x Wood + 15x Thatch + 12x Fiber

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Intake

Components: 25x Stone

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Straight

Components: 5x Stone

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Tap

Components: 10x Stone + 15x Wood

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Inclined

Components: 10x Stone

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Intersection

Components: 15x Stone

Stone Irrigation Pipe – Vertical

Components: 5x Stone

Metal Irrigation Pipe – Tap

Components: 10x Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 4x Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste, 15x Wood or Fungal Wood

Metal Irrigation Pipe – Straight

Components: 2x Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 1x Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste

Metal Irrigation Pipe – Intersection

Components: 6x Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 3x Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste

Metal Irrigation Pipe – Inclined

Components: 4x Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 2x Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste

Metal Irrigation Pipe – Vertical

Components: 2x Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 1x Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste

Refrigerator

Components: 120x  Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot, 15x  Polymer, Organic Polymer, or Corrupted Nodule, 25x Crystal or Primal Crystal, 10x Electronics

Pro Tip

Fertilizer made from Thatch and Dinosaurs Feces along with Composite Bin is the best fertilizer that you can use in the game.

This is pretty much everything we have on Ark: Survival Evolved Farming and Irrigation. If there is something else, you would like to know, make sure to let us know in the comments section below.

Also, don’t forget to help us complete this guide in case you know how to make Metal Structures.

Haider is a freelance contributor, who loves video games, playing guitar, and aviation. He is a competitive FPS player and also enjoys exotic RPG games like Diablo and Xenogears (his favorite game of all time) ...