Mods / Soil Amendments

Tags:
Crafting Tweak
Author:
Droseran
Side:
Server
Created:
Oct 21st 2025 at 6:13 PM
Last modified:
Apr 30th at 11:53 PM
Downloads:
3897
Follow Unfollow 181
Latest release (for Vintage Story 1.20.0 - 1.22.1, potentially outdated):
SoilAmendments_1.0.0.zip  1-click install

There has long been a practice of amending soils into fertile farmland through the addition of organic material and natural minerals. This mod attempts to replicate the process of taking inorganic minerals and slowly enriching them into useful soils. Conservation of mass is observed (any full blocks added create at least that many full blocks of soil). Fertilizers and sulfur are not utilized in these recipes because they do not tend to have long-term affects on soil quality.

 

The recipes are:

6 sand + 2 gravel = 8 barren soil

8 barren soil + 4 rot = 8 low fertility soil

8 low fertility soil + 8 rot = 8 medium fertility soil

4 medium fertility soil + 4 compost + 2 lime = 4 high fertility soil

4 high fertility soil + 12 compost + 8 powdered charcoal = 4 Terra Preta

Mod Version Mod IdentifierFor Game version Downloads Released Changelog Download 1-click mod install*
1.0.0 soilamendments
1.20.0 - 1.22.1
3897 Oct 21st 2025 at 6:18 PM SoilAmendments_1.0.0.zip 1-click install

Initial release.


8 Comments (oldest first | newest first) (threaded | flat)

WalkTheSeas, May 6th at 6:07 PM

It is working now, not sure what I did to change it, but it is working.

WalkTheSeas, Apr 30th at 9:23 PM

This mod does not work as of 1.22 for me. None of the soil recipes show up or craft.

Droseran , Apr 30th at 11:52 PM
@WalkTheSeas: This mod does not work as of 1.22 for me. None of the soil recipes show up or craft.

Just tested it in 1.22.0 and 1.22.1, the recipes are visible in the handbook and worked when used to craft and upgrade soils. You may have another mod interfering with the recipes.

WalkTheSeas, May 1st at 1:02 AM
@WalkTheSeas: This mod does not work as of 1.22 for me. None of the soil recipes show up or craft.

I can't see how, it was the only mod I had enabled when I tried it? I even tried reinstalling and cache clearing.

mattergamer, Feb 16th at 3:38 AM

Works on v1.22.0-pre.2

Droseran , Jan 14th at 4:39 PM (modified Jan 14th at 4:47 PM)

Yehoria Medium fertility soil is pretty easy to make in real life. One of the most common phrases in soil science is, "the difference between worthless sand and good farmland is a handful of manure." Or clay, depends on what poor soil is common in the area. Either way, the point is that the organic content of the soil overwhelmingly influences the nutrients available to plants in most situations. A single cup of organic matter in a five gallon bucket of soil will have very noticeable affects on plant growth. It's not just that it adds nutrients to the soil, but that the organic particles adhere to the cations in a way that plants can easily remove them. Clay particles will strongly adhere to nutrients making it difficult for plants to obtain them, while sand particles allow nutrients to simply leach out of the soil into runoff.

Charcoal turns this up to 11, easily holding onto tons of bioavailable ions due to its porosity. Charcoal is the primary contributor to the desirability of terra preta, and this practice is not as rare or uncommon as popularly believed. Dumping wood ashes from winter hearth fires onto the farmland was a common practice in many areas, as it incorporates small amounts of unburnt charcoal as well as potassium into the soil. The difference between this and the terra preta found in South America is that the terra preta charcoal component likely formed in a much more deliberate and large-scale way, whether man-made wildfires or large-scale dumping, as indicated by the presence of pottery shards (also a porous, ionicly binding component).

I didn't include sources of N, P, or K in these recipes because these are very temporary additions to soils (especially the nitrates). They're taken up by plants, washed away, or processed into gasses by bacteria fairly quickly. Bone meal doesn't do much for soil on a long term basis, though in bulk it can somewhat neutralize acidic soils due to the calcium. The reason fish were often used as fertilizer wasn't for the bones, but because they were a highly abundant and easy to collect source of organic matter. They were frequently caught in nets and buried in the soil in the tons; at least one species of trout went extinct due to this practice.

Yehoria, Jan 14th at 3:54 PM

Medium fertility soil feels to easy to make. I mean, it's easy to find too, but. Also i feel like bonemeal should have been kept as an ingredient. Pretty sure fish skeletons were used in making of real life terra preta.

Guimoute, Oct 21st 2025 at 7:35 PM

Conservation of mass is awesome! Many of the vanilla recipes are annoying for not respecting that.