Soil fertility in Manor Lords is a crucial factor for resource management. If you plant crops in soil that isn’t suitable, they won’t grow easily and won’t yield sufficient materials. That’s why you should first activate the fertility overlay and check how good the soil is.
How to turn the fertility overlay on in Manor Lords
You can check soil fertility in Manor Lords by pressing C on the keyboard to open the Construction menu, then clicking one of the fertility overlay options on the right-side menu. You can check Emmer, Flax, Barley, and Rye fertility. Soil that is good for a specific crop may not be suitable for another, so always check the surrounding soil before creating a Field.
The fertility overlay is color and symbol-coded, following the legend below:
- Green (+++): Great fertility
- Light green (++): Good fertility
- Light yellow (+): Average fertility
- Yellow (-): Below average fertility
- Orange (–): Bad fertility
- Red (—): Terrible fertility
When selecting a plot of land to start a plantation in Manor Lords, aim to choose areas that are colored green, light green, or light yellow, while avoiding the other three colors. If there isn’t any suitable soil nearby for planting what you need, your best option is to build a Trading Post. This allows you to acquire the necessary resources from other characters you interact with during your adventure. Alternatively, you can consider expanding to areas with better soil, though this approach will take time and require additional resources to potentially confront and overcome the owners of that land, if you’re encroaching on their territory.
From my tests, cutting down trees doesn’t affect soil fertility, and there is no way to force a soil to become more fertile.
