We simplified the "BREED" and "MALE" contracts for your own animals. Steps have been removed. For 'other players' animals it remains the same.

The fertilisers and phyto treatments 1, 2 and 3 have been replaced by nitrogen fertiliser, herbicide treatment, insecticide treatment and fungicide treatment.

As promised, the new 'crop program' is now available. Here are the changes made to the old system.

- New crop list display with tabs offering much more information all at a glance. The old plot display is now available only on the menu to the left hand side.

- Plot terrain (land relief) : elevation, orientation, slope, streams and rivers
Elevation and orientation are given just for information at the moment but will be of use later on. They give the slope of the plot. The stronger the slope, the more APs will be needed to work them.
Animals can drink in streams and rivers.
If your plot is close to a stream, a river or if it is in a depression, there will be a risk to bog your machines (an extra amount of APs will be required to get out of the bog).
- Soil nutrients management.
The soil contains 6 nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S) all necessary to your crop growth. For an optimal yield, you may want to add these nutrients by adding fertilisers. Each crop has different needs. After the harvest you will find a loss in your soil nutrients.
The values given are theoretical but a soil analysis is possible every 5 years. It\'ll give you the exact composition of your soil. By default, all plots had their first analysis made with teh program implementation.
Not only fertiliser addition can improve your soil nutrients but also, manure spreading, cover crop, straw shredding.
If instead of shredding your straw you press it into bales, you will lose nutrients.
Moreover, the plot\'s quality ( good, average, poor) is now available. It has an influence on the amount of fertiliser to be added and also on the harvest quality. From now on if you sow and harvest on a sunny day in a good quality plot you have 100% chance to get a good quality harvest. The soil quality may change at each soil analysis but the chance of changing is quite small. Plot pricing now depends on the plot quality : +10% for average quality and +20% for good quality.
A table is available from the menu on the left side of the screen that gives you what fertilisers you need. The fertiliser used in the old version will be automatically replaced by a new one (most likely nitrogen fertiliser), so do not throw it away.
Fertiliser purchase from the cooperative has been made more user friendly. You can now overload your trailer and the cost in AP will depend on your purchase and the number of trips needed. Careful though as only goods not available in RACs benefit from this system.

- New phyto treatment management.
Phyto treatment is not mandatory anymore. Your crops can now have problems randomly (fungi, insects, weeds) you will have to fight. The later you will take action, the bigger will be the damage ( growth regression).
The old version treatments 1, 2 and 3 are of no use anymore. The treatments used for market gardening are now replacing them. Do not throw away your stock of old ones they will be replaced soon.
A new building is available now : the phyto treatment room. It is used to store all types of phyto treaments. This building is not mandatory but it will make your farm in accordance with the PR-SIM1 standard ( with no effect so far).
FWF that used to perform phyto treament jobs have to check their pricing.

- Pluviometry management.
The effect rain has on the crop growth is not given in days anymore but in millimetres and each crop requires a certain amount of rain to grow. The amount of rain varying from a region/state to another, it\'ll thus be harder to grow crops requiring a lot of water in dry regions/states. Irrigating brings an additional amount in millimetres to the rain. For better irrigation we increased the spring flows so a level 1 spring now gives 100 cubic metres instead of 1 cubic metre.

A few changes and tuning will most likely take place in the following days.

Our SimAgri Jackpot ended this morning. It has been very successful as more than 11,000 prizes were won ! Congratulations to you all !

This week SimAgri celebrates his 5th anniversary ! We offer you a Jackpot. During the whole week, you\'ll have 5 chances to earn a prize each day. You can win SimAgri euros, extra days for your SimPass or even the Jackpot , a tractor for your SimAgri farm !

Good luck to you all and thanks for being with us for all this time !

From now on when a shareholder goes inactive (no connections for 30 days) his shares become automatically re-buyable by the cooperative who sold them. In the past it wasn\'t possible and cooperatives had to pay benefits to inactive players.

The SimAgri Team wishes you all a very good year 2010 full of cattle, sheep, tractors and fields ! This year will start with the coming on line of the new crop program. To celebrate SimAgri 5th anniversary (10th of january), there will be a little suprise !