Your factory in Arknights Endfield can do more than just process minerals and craft basic materials. Once you unlock the right facilities, you can grow plants inside your base and use them to create medicine, explosives, and other items that need organic components. This farming system becomes essential pretty early in the story, so understanding how it works helps you stay ahead on resource production.
The planting feature isn’t available right from the start, but it’s not locked behind late-game content either. You’ll need plants fairly early into your progression, especially if you want to craft healing items or sell high-value goods to outposts. This guide walks you through unlocking the farming system, building your first production lines, and optimizing plant growth for maximum efficiency.
For more tips on base building and resource management, check out our Arknights Endfield guides hub. If you’re looking to optimize your factory layout, our battery production guide covers similar production chain concepts.
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Understanding the Planting System
You’re not actually planting crops in fields or tending to outdoor gardens in Endfield. All plant production happens inside specialized machines built within your PAC building spaces. The system uses two key facility types that work together to create a self-sustaining production loop.
Seed-Picking Units take hand-gathered plants like Buckflower and convert them into seeds. Think of this as your processing station—it takes raw organic materials from exploration and transforms them into something you can replicate.
Planting Units do the reverse. They take seeds and turn them back into full plants. By connecting a Seed-Picking Unit to a Planting Unit, you create an endless production cycle. Feed one plant into the system, and it generates seeds that grow into more plants, which generate more seeds, and so on.
This setup lets you produce unlimited quantities of plants without constantly gathering them in the field. You just need to kickstart the cycle with initial plant samples from exploration.
Required Materials to Build Farming Facilities
Before you can start farming, you need to craft the necessary facilities. Here’s what each one costs:
Seed-Picking Unit:
- Amethyst Parts
Planting Unit:
- Carbon
- Amethyst Parts
Getting Amethyst Parts: Send Amethyst Fibers through a Fitting Unit to produce Amethyst Parts. You should have access to Fitting Units relatively early in your progression.
Getting Carbon: Process plants through a Refining Unit to produce Carbon. This creates an interesting bootstrap problem—you need plants to make Carbon, which you need to build Planting Units. Fortunately, you can gather enough initial plants from exploration to craft your first Carbon batches.
For more on processing materials efficiently, check our aerospace materials guide which covers similar material chains.
Building Your First Plant Farm
Once you have the materials, it’s time to construct your farming facilities within your PAC building spaces. Here’s a basic setup that works well for early game needs:
- Place a Seed-Picking Unit in your PAC
- Place a Planting Unit adjacent to it
- Connect the Seed-Picking Unit output to the Planting Unit input
- Connect the Planting Unit output back to the Seed-Picking Unit input
- Feed one Buckflower into the Seed-Picking Unit to start the cycle
The load and yield balance numbers might look a bit odd since you’re using Buckflower to create more Buckflower, but the cycle becomes self-sustaining once it gets rolling. This basic setup provides more than enough plant production for early game resource needs.
If you’re struggling with factory layout in general, our blueprints guide explains building placement and connection mechanics in more detail.
Why Buckflower Farms Matter
Buckflower production becomes particularly important once you reach Valley IV. This region has a refugee camp outpost that buys Buck Capsule (B), one of the most valuable items you can sell. Creating a steady supply of Buck Capsules generates significant income for upgrading your base and operators.
Beyond selling them, Buck Capsules also serve as tactical healing items for your operators. When equipped, they automatically activate when an operator drops below 60% HP, restoring 655 health instantly. This can save you during tough encounters, especially before you have dedicated healers built up.
For more on healing mechanics, check our revive and heal guide.
Optimized Farm Design
The basic farm works fine initially, but you can improve efficiency significantly with better layouts. Here’s a more optimized design you can reference:
Share Code: EFO01ouiIuU47e60IieO
Note that this share code currently only works on Endfield’s Asia server. If you’re on a different server, you’ll need to replicate the layout manually or wait for cross-server blueprint sharing.
The optimized design improves throughput, reduces bottlenecks, and makes better use of PAC building space. As you expand your base through our expand Core AIC area guide, you’ll have room for multiple farming setups running different plant types.
Expanding Your Production Lines
As you progress deeper into the game, you’ll need more complex production chains that incorporate plants. Buck Capsule (B) production, for example, requires Ferrium Bottles in addition to Buckflower. This means running a separate production line for Ferrium materials and somehow merging it with your Buckpowder output.
Factory building gets complicated fast once you start layering multiple production chains. You have a few options:
Build everything yourself: More satisfying but time-consuming. You’ll learn the system deeply but spend hours tweaking layouts.
Copy existing blueprints: Faster and less frustrating. Other players have already optimized these layouts, so why reinvent the wheel?
Mix both approaches: Copy the basic structure, then customize it based on your specific resource needs and available space.
Our Control Nexus Growth Chamber guide covers additional facility types you’ll unlock later that complement plant production.
Managing Power and Resources
Plant production facilities consume power like any other factory component. Make sure you have sufficient power generation before expanding your farming operations. Our increase power output guide explains how to scale your energy production.
You’ll also need consistent material inputs. Set up collection routes near plant spawn locations so you can quickly gather Buckflower and other organic materials during exploration. Our quick stash guide helps optimize inventory management during gathering runs.
Using Plants for Advanced Crafting
Plants feed into numerous crafting recipes beyond healing items:
Explosives: Required for certain puzzles and destructible objects in the world. Our Aburrey Quarry Aurylene locations guide mentions needing explosives for collectibles.
Medicine: Various healing items and buffs for your operators
Trade Goods: High-value items like Buck Capsules for selling to outposts
Refining Materials: Carbon and other processed materials for facility construction
The more diverse your plant production, the more crafting options you unlock. Eventually, you’ll want farms for multiple plant types, not just Buckflower.
Team Building While Farming
While your factory produces plants in the background, focus on building strong operator teams. Check out our team composition guides:
- Best starter teams guide
- Best Pogranichnik teams guide
- Endministrator best teams guide
- Laevatain best team comp guide
Strong teams clear content faster, which means more time exploring and gathering materials for your farms.
General Progression Tips
Prioritize Buck Capsule production early: The income from selling them accelerates your progression significantly
Gather plants during exploration: Always pick up Buckflower and other plants you encounter. They’re free materials that kickstart or supplement your production chains
Expand PAC space gradually: Don’t rush to fill every space immediately. Build what you need, test it, then expand
Use gear templates: Our gear templates guide helps manage equipment across operators
Level operators efficiently: Check our level up and promote characters guide for efficient progression
For additional resource types and farming strategies, see our origeometry guide and extra tokens guide.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Not connecting facilities properly: Make sure your Seed-Picking Units and Planting Units are actually connected. A broken connection stops the entire production cycle.
Forgetting to seed the initial plant: You need at least one plant to start the cycle. Don’t build the facilities and wonder why nothing’s happening—feed them material first.
Overbuilding too early: PAC space is limited initially. Focus on essential production lines before creating elaborate farming setups.
Neglecting power requirements: Plants farms consume power. If you’re maxing out your power grid, production stops.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I start building plant farms?
Build your first plant farm as soon as you unlock Seed-Picking Units and Planting Units and have the necessary materials (Amethyst Parts and Carbon). This typically happens within the first few hours of gameplay, and you’ll want farms running early since Buck Capsules provide valuable income and healing. Don’t wait until you “need” plants—set up production preemptively so you have materials stockpiled when crafting recipes require them.
Can I grow plants other than Buckflower?
Yes, the same Seed-Picking Unit and Planting Unit setup works for any plant type in the game. Buckflower is just the most commonly used example because it’s available early and has multiple important uses. As you explore different regions, gather samples of other plants and feed them into your farming system to diversify production.
How many plant farms do I need?
For early game, one Buckflower farm is sufficient. Mid-game, you’ll want two to three farms producing different plant types to support various crafting recipes. Late game, consider running four or more specialized farms depending on your production goals. The key is scaling gradually—build what you need, see where bottlenecks form, then expand accordingly.
Do plant farms require maintenance or do they run automatically?
Once set up correctly with proper connections and power supply, plant farms run automatically. You don’t need to manually tend them or feed in additional materials beyond the initial seed plant. Just make sure your power generation remains sufficient as you expand operations. If production stops, check your power output and facility connections first.
