Medium Crop Plot

The second step in farming

The Medium Crop Plot is a fenced garden bed for growing crops in ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended. In the game's words it is "A medium garden plot, with a fence to keep out vermin." The ARK Wiki calls it the second farming plot a survivor can craft, and our records list the Small Crop Plot as its prerequisite. It accepts every kind of seed, stores up to 400 water and can be put down anywhere on the ground as long as the spot is fairly flat.

Crafting the plot

The engram opens at level 26 and costs 12 engram points. The plot is made in the inventory from:

• 50 Stone
• 40 Wood (or Fungal Wood, says the wiki)
• 30 Fiber
• 20 Thatch

Crafting takes 5 seconds and gives 10.7 XP. Each plot weighs 4 and they stack to 100, for a full-stack weight of 400.

Growing a crop

• Seed: a plant seed goes into the plot's inventory and is planted after a few seconds. Berry seeds work too, though the wiki says they gain nothing here compared with a Small Crop Plot.
• Water: usually a water source connected through a Stone Tap or Metal Tap; rain or a Waterskin also work but are less reliable.
• Fertilizer: output from a Compost Bin or a Dung Beetle lasts longest but needs time to produce, while plain Feces may be easier to begin with.

Over several day cycles the plant passes through its growth stages. From the Fruitling stage on it can be harvested again and again, holding up to 300 of its berry or 150 of an advanced crop, and it grows back after each harvest. To swap the plant, choose the destroy plant option in the radial menu.

Farming notes and durability

• A plot that stays watered and fertilized never has to be reseeded.
• Crops left in the plot rot slowly, but at the normal rate once the fertilizer runs out.
• Each yield has a small chance to produce a fresh seed that can start another plot.
• Feces keep spoiling inside the plot whatever nitrogen they have left, which may waste some when added in bulk.
• On Scorched Earth, before patch 282.102, crop plots could only go in sunlit locations.

The game treats it as a wooden structure: hands, stone weapons and non-explosive ranged attacks cannot damage it, and neither can a list of aggressive creatures, the Raptor, Direwolf, Titanoboa and Pulmonoscorpius among them. Our records list it on 14 maps, and 74 crate types can contain it, such as the Aberration Blue and Aberration Green crates.