Overview
Farm Health (the Farm hub's 🛡️ tab) uses Integrated Pest Management: scout first, use the gentlest fix, and treat only what is needed. It has three views: Threat board, Wildlife allies and IPM journal, plus your number of active pressures, your IPM stewardship score (it starts at 20), resolved cases and wildlife allies.
How a case works
- A new case appears as an Unidentified farm-health signal with severity 1 or 2 (of 3).
- Press Scout evidence (5 coins, 2 XP) to reveal clues. After two observations the threat is identified.
- Choose a response. The right response for that threat has a much better chance of working.
- If it works, the case is resolved and your stewardship score rises (5 for a correct response, 2 otherwise; 8 or 4 XP). If not, the case gets worse and stewardship drops 2.
Response odds
Base chance 54%, plus 22% for a matching response (or minus 16% for a poor one), plus 8% for each point of support from a trained companion scout and wildlife allies.
Each week
- Cases get older; after two weeks each has a 45% chance to get worse.
- A case at severity 3 has a 42% chance each week to do harm: insects and diseases take 8 health from one plant; deer can take a young plug (stage 1–2); other wildlife costs 12 to 20 coins.
- Insects don't do harm in Winter, and threats out of season do no crop harm; root rot can still hit dormant plants on soil draining under 50%.
- With fewer than four active cases, there is a 38% chance a new in-season threat appears.
Threats
| Threat | Type | Seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Mice & voles | Wildlife | Fall, Winter, Spring |
| Ground squirrels | Wildlife | Spring–Fall |
| Deer transplant disturbance | Wildlife | All year |
| Skunk activity | Wildlife | Spring–Fall |
| Fox pressure | Wildlife | All year |
| Coyote pressure | Wildlife | All year |
| Greenhouse fungus gnats | Insect | All year |
| Greenhouse snails & slugs | Insect | All year |
| Japanese beetles | Insect | Summer, Fall |
| Spongy moth | Insect | Spring, Summer |
| Four-lined plant bug | Insect | Spring, Summer |
| Grasshoppers | Insect | Summer, Fall |
| Aphids | Insect | Spring, Summer |
| Phytophthora / crown-root rot | Disease | All year |
| Rhizoctonia / Pythium root disease | Disease | All year |
| Powdery mildew | Disease | Summer, Fall |
| Botrytis / gray mold | Disease | All year |
Wildlife allies
| Habitat | Cost | Helps against |
|---|---|---|
| 🦉 Owl nest box | 220 | Mice and squirrels (once occupied) |
| 🦇 Bat house | 180 | Insects (once occupied) |
| 🪶 Kestrel perch/box | 195 | Mice and squirrels (once occupied) |
| 🐞 Beneficial insectary strip | 140 | Insects |
| 📷 Trail-camera network | 160 | Wildlife |
| 🕸️ Greenhouse screen & sanitation bay | 210 | Diseases |
Allies and scouts
- Building a habitat adds 4 stewardship and 6 XP. Nest boxes and roosts have a 9% chance each week to be occupied; the camera, screen and insectary work right away.
- Assign a healthy, trained companion (health 55%+, skill 10+) as a scout for extra observations. Cats help most with mice, guardian dogs with fox, coyote and deer, herding dogs with wildlife, and chickens or ducks with grasshoppers and beetles. Companions never attack wildlife.
Tips
- Run preventive scout (6 coins) on a clear board turns up any pressure that's out there.
- The game teaches observation and prevention, not pesticide recommendations.
See also
Written from the game itself. Spot something out of date? and our farm team will check it.
