Onions

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Onions are one of the five basic vegetable types. They are grown on sandy terrain from Onion Seeds. They are used in cooking, and are the main diet of sheep in captivity.

To grow onions, plant an onion seed in a sandy area. Water the plant immediately, and water it again each time it changes size. Harvest once the option appears.

Unlike the other vegetables, onions are not harmed by over-watering. It appears that watering onions resets their growth timer, making it take longer for the onion to reach the next stage of growth. (see discussion for details)

After manually harvesting 500 onions, you gain the option to automatically accumulate them as an offline chore.

Uses

• Cooking (Grilled Onions)
• Sheep food

Yield

The base harvest is 4 onions per seed. Some locations are known to provide a better yield; see the notes below.

7 around -500, -500ish west of S Harmony in Seven Lakes (Raw Data: MrStoned)
12 @1113,275 and 13@0,0 (Raw Data: Stoneyard)

I was tipped off in RP chat that people had noticed yields increasing as they went south, so while I ran to SE for seeds, I started test planting randomly. There seem to be kind of onion 'bumps' as you travel north to south; at my CP near ULead in RP I was getting 4, but as I went south my yields went up to 10, and decreased back to 4 at some point before crossing over into 7L. Yields started picking up again as I went south, peaking at 12 at the lake N of ULead in SE, and were back down to 7 as I got close to SE UWorship. There's probably a formula of some sort there, but I was just running and not making notes! -Noctilucent

Best yield I found so far is 1100, 0 which produced 14 onions per planting. The downside of this spot is it's pretty far from water. - Maximus

Best SPOT I've found is 1111, 277 which yielded 12 per planting but is right next to water. - Maximus

Seed Production

Based on tests with a lot of Lower Egypt Advanced Research Network this evening, we believe we have found it (simplified version):

• There are avatar-specific "magic" trees, likely based on some hash function. These seem to be every 100 or so coords, so there's probably one near your camp. These can be any type of tree, and different "magic" trees for the same avatar may be different types.
• Any time after harvesting a "magic" tree, you will get a second seed on your next onion planting.
• If you have harvested several (7?) trees near (roughly within view distance of) a "magic" tree, you get one seed but half as many onions as a hint. Ones very near (25 coords or so? (I think it's closer to 75-80 --Gyges)) don't count.
• If you have done both, your first planting will give a bonus seed and the next planting will give one seed but half yield.

You can find a "magic" tree by the following:

1. Harvest onions to reset your batch
2. Harvest 7 trees.
3. Harvest onions. If you get normal yield, go back to step 2 in a new area.
4. If you got half yield, one tree you can see on maximum zoom-out from one of the seven trees you tried was a "magic" tree. Harvest all of them to make sure and plant onions again to check.
5. This time you should get a seed. You can now narrow down which of those trees was your "magic" tree by doing half of them and seeing if you get another seed and narrowing it down by repeating.

Seed Production Comments:

I received 0 yield and 2 seeds on my first growth. I got 2 yield and 1 seed on my 2nd growth. Then yield went to 5 with 1 seed after that. senario: Guildmate was working flax, had a 100+ bundle in the water near where I was growing. I recently built a building (brick racks, small distaff, chest). Have not been able to duplicate again. -- Shiranai

Guildie got 0 yield and 2 seeds on first growth. I had been teaching him a skill, there was rotting flax nearby, he was picking slate up at the time and had recently picked grass. He has been unable to repeat it. I got 0 yield and 2 seeds on the first growth. I had been teaching, rotting flax nearby, and making bricks. We both had perfect waterings. Happened again to another guildie. He was not being taught a skill. Maybe its having another avatar nearby, or opposite sex avatar or having a guildie nearby. I was 10-12 coordinates away. But this was not repeatable. Once a day kind of thing? This all happened around 11:30a.m. game time --Amora

I also received 2 seeds, 0 yield on my first planting. I planted two seeds; the second harvested produced 1 seed, 2 yield and all subsequent plantings produced 1 seed, 4 yield. All waterings were punctual. I had not yet taught any skills this tale. All guild members were in another region; I saw no one else nearby. Both just before and during the growing period, I gathered thorns, slate, and water, and caught three species of insect. Time was 12:10AM --Axhakumu

I have produced my second onion seed. Each night (after midnight) for several nights (4), I planted several onions. The first planted seed of the night has so far always given a smaller yield than any neighbouring or subsequent seeds planted in that spot-- in my case, 3 vs. 5 yield. When the seed was produced, the yield was 0, the yield of the next planted seed was 3, and all other seeds planted at that time gave 5 yield. I was not doing anything else at the time (earlier, I gathered slate and dirt), and was relatively far from buildings and other people. Time at seed production was ~4:20am. --Axhakumu

My hypothesis is that the first planted seed each day (or shorter period-- probably each Egyptian day, but unsure) has a (maybe random?) chance to earn a new seed via multiple "die rolls" made on the first plant. Each "win" in this lottery decreases the yield by some amount as well as increases the chance of a new seed by some amount which is <100%. One "win" might increase the seed production to, e.g., 1.5, but we would not receive a "half seed" so we get only the one we planted. Multiple "wins" may decrease the yield beyond a threshold (0?), and then the chance for seeding may increase until it is >=100% (thus +1 seed), and we get a new seed. --Axhakumu

I think it might be a simple 24h or 48h timer. I got a seed the first time i planted (0 onions, 2 seeds). After not planting anything for about 12h i tried a spot and got 3:1, which was lower than anything else before BUT the second harvest. To test my theory i planted another seed on the exact same spot and got a 6:1 ratio. -- entux

I also had 2 seeds, 0 onions on first planting - one seed only planted, about 5:15 am Egypt time. All subsequent plantings yielded 4 onions and 1 seed. Watering patterns (double watering each time for one planting, letting it die back and then watering again for another) didn't affect the yield either way on subsequent plantings. I was the only one in the area and hadn't done anything unusual since logging in though I did have two beetles (picked up >24 hours ago) in inventory as well as some dried flax. No other avatars were visible and I hadn't left the campsite or spoken in Main since logging in (though I had chatted in guild and private chats). I had built buildings (flax hammock, brick racks and flax comb), gathered things (wood, mud, sand, thorns, slate, water), made boards, stone blades and bricks, made canvas, rope and twine, restrung the loom and repaired the plane, and grown, rotted and dried flax. Most of that seems too common to be the only trigger for seeds. I don't yet know Arthropodology so it can't have been insect related and I have never fished or dowsed. Possibly a time of day or once per real life/Teppy day thing, or a waveform like carrots from tale 5? --Ahnati

I've never had any extra seeds, I've planted at different times of the day. I've gotten mushrooms, herbs, fished, insects, FEMALE beetles. I've built a CP, Sheep pen, made jugs, gathered limestone and been on a dig. I haven't gotten a single palm frond. I've also grown all other types of vegetable except Carrots. --Pauven (After further testing, beetles and growing other vegetables seems to have no effects on onions. I have also tested empty inventory, dropping beetles, near different stages and types of flax, after ripping flax, after harvesting flax, after harvesting seeds).

Having planted once and got a seed, I ran around gathering wood from trees. No specific loop, just roaming around gathering. After 271 wood (dropping 2 due to weight capacity) returned and planted at the same place and got another seed. Theories: either related to quantity of wood gathered or related to gathering from specific tree types. I performed no game actions (other than talking on channels, but not Main) between the plantings other than gathering wood. I did get some insects but since people have said they didn't have that trained we can probably write that off. -- yllamana

Adding: I repeated the whole thing, just gathering wood, and planted in a different location and got seeds again. -- yllamana

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• I got my first seed after planting normally, harvesting 78 unique trees without repeating any of them, and planting again.
• Immediately afterwards I did another run of 78 trees with about 50% overlap with that first run and got a half-harvest but no seed.
• Following that, I harvested a run covering my first trial (with a little extra) and got another seed. I've put the trees on that run at Talk:Onions

--LehmanHotep 22:34, 8 December 2011 (EST)

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I just found a single tree that makes my next harvest produce a seed. It's a Towering Palm at 1167,7222. I do not have to harvest any other trees to get this effect, just this one. -- yllamana

My magic tree at 781, -1044 (Seven Lakes) is the Giant Cricklewood. --Fazzfab

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Some notes on Onion growth:

• First seed from planting normally, then half harvest from second planting.
• I started with a known cursed tree(half harvest) and collected from 20 trees after it(total:21). Still got half harvest.
• Yay finally found my magic tree. Cursed Tree at 1384, 3952; Magic Tree at 1446, 3880. Distance is ~95.02 coords.
• Harvesting Magic, Cursed, and then normal, I get one harvest of 0/2, one of 2/1, and all the rest 4/1.
• Similarly, Harvesting Cursed, normal, and THEN Magic, I get the same results as above, which would completely explain why so many people get this result when first planting onions.

Tylui 17:29 PST, 11 March 2012

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See also

The general vegetables page, as well as Cabbage, Carrots, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Garlic, Leeks, Peppers.

Required By

Cooking, Epreuve des Festivals, Grilled Food, Sheep, Test of Festivals, Test of Towers