Talk:Farmer/@comment-5997873-20130118075415

Okay, the farmer must be on the same level as the dirt blocks growing the farm. IE 1 block below the level of the ground.

It harvests everything in an 8 block radius around the farmer, in the shape of a square. This means a total 17x17 square with the farmer directly in the middle. This affect seems to (with basic farmer) occur about once every couple of minutes if you have a large farm.

I am not sure, but the number of plants seems to have an effect on the amount of steam needed to power the farmer. I am also unsure about what the various upgrades do.

It trims off everything one block above it, but leaves the 'vines' that produce pumkins and melons alone. Unlike harvesting by hand, it harvests the entire melon instead of slices. In practice, this means that you rarely want to automate your melon farm since 'assembled' melons are generally useless for anything but decoration.

It seems to have no effect on cactus, so old-style piston-based cactus farming may be in order if you need large amounts.