Cross Breeding

Introduction
Cross Breeding is a feature of Industrial Craft 2 that allows you to combine the stats of two Crops to potentially gain new Crops. They are especially useful for getting materials that cannot normally be retrieved from crops.

Every plant in IC2 is capable of Cross Breeding, including Vanilla plants, except for mushrooms and cacti. However, the two plants added by RedPower, Flax and Indigo Flower, cannot be used in Cross Breeding.

There are various different types of new crops, including Blackthorn, Cyazint, Ferru, Stickreed, Terra Wart, Hops, Venomilia, Tulip, Cocoa, Redwheat, Aurelia, Dandelion, Rose, and Coffee beans. Crops from Vanilla Minecraft that can be used include Melons, Pumpkins, Cocoa Beans, Carrots, Potatos, Sugar Cane, Wheat, Roses, Dandelions, and Netherwart.

Calculator
For a calculator that has data found by snooping around the IC2 source files, you can use the one listed here.

This document

Harvesting Process
When a fully matured plant is harvested from a Crop, it will have a chance of dropping a Seed Bag, along with the respective crop. Simply left-click to harvest the plant.

Unless previously identified, Seed Bags will be known as Unknown Seeds (30126). Each seed bag has its unique seed and cannot be spawned.

Each Unknown Seed can be analyzed by a Cropnalyzer up to four times. Each scan providing more information about the seed. More information on the Cropnalyzer.

Cross Breeding Process

 * 1) Place a Crop on each North, South, East, West directions on a 3 x 3 Tilled Dirt with Water in the middle. Make sure the Area is well lit and quite big. It is recommended to expose the plants to the sky as plants need air to grow.
 * 2) Place respective Seeds in the Crop and wait until fully grown and the stick is almost unseen. It should be noted that when trying to plant Roses or Dandelions, unless using a seed bag, exactly 4 in your hand are required, and the crop will need direct contact with sunlight, as well as the need for it to be daytime.
 * 3) Once they are grown, place two Crops (Right Click Twice) on each of the corners of the 3x3 field. Don't harvest yet.
 * 4) After some time Cross Breeds will eventually start to grow on the additional Crops.

Alternative Cross Breeding Process
This method allows for easier collection of harvests, makes it much harder to accidentally trample Crops, and limits the damage that can be done by any one weed.
 * 1) Place a 2x2 square of raised dirt and till it.Alt_CrossBreeding.png
 * 2) Place a Crop on two opposing corners with water off to the side. Make sure there are no more than 4 blocks distance between water and your Crops. Make sure the Area is well lit and exposed to the sky for best results.
 * 3) Plant your seeds in the two Crop and wait until at least its second to last stage of growth.
 * 4) Once they are at least in their second to last stage of growth, place two Crops on each of the two remaining blocks.
 * 5) After some time Cross Breeds will eventually start to grow on the additional Crops.

Weeds
Weeds will eventually start to grow at your Crossing Station. They can stop growth of Plants and destroy them.

Weeds can be stopped and prevented by the use of Weed-EX, but using it will hurt the stats of new crops, and overruse may be able to damage the stats of existing crops.

Weeds can be spotted by Grass growing around a field or by Weed Seeds in the Crop itself.

*Note: The beginning stage of weeds can easily be mistaken for wheat or other grass based plants. The key difference is that weeds are a darker green and lays flat. The only first-stagers that look like weeds are flowers. Another thing to be wary of is that from Growth statistic 24 to31 (current max), the Crop will begin acting like a weed, destroying nearby crops just as weeds do. Therefore a recommended Growth statistic would be 20-21. In the NEI mod you can spawn in seed which analyze as weed seeds (bug?) Growth Stages of Weeds:

Cross Breeding Tools
Crops are used as a basic structure to enable the Growth of Cross Breeds.

Fertilizer is used to increase the speed of Growth since Plants won't be instantly grown by Bonemeal and can take quite a while to grow on their own.

Weed-EX is used to stop or prevent Weeds.

Hydration Cells are Coolant Cells which have been placed into an Extractor. They are used to hydrate Crops, however they will not work as a substitute for a water source.

The Crop-Matron is an automated Device for Cross Breeding. It will apply fertilizer, Weed-Ex and Hydration Cells when needed.

Plants
Note: When it comes to special conditions for growth, ones listed as having none includes having no need for any light. Knowing this, it makes it much easier to cross-breed for other plants needing no light by growing them in darkness, which filters out plants which require light to grow.

Tier 1
Pumpkin Wheat
 * Keywords: Orange, Decoration, Stem
 * Source: pumpkin seeds, seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Pumpkin, Pumpkin Seeds, and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Melon + Wheat, Reed + Reed
 * Keywords: Yellow, Food, Wheat
 * Source: Seeds, seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Wheat, Seeds, and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.

Tier 2
Reed Melon
 * Keywords: Reed
 * Source: Sugar Cane, seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Sugar Cane and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Wheat + Wheat, Sugar Cane + Sugar Cane, Sugar Cane + Wheat

Dandelion
 * Keywords: Green, Food, Stem
 * Source: Melon seeds, seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Wheat + Wheat, Pumpkin + Pumpkin, Reed + Reed
 * Keywords: Yellow, Flower
 * Source: 4 Dandelions (plants as one fully grown Dandelion) seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Yellow dye and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Any two flowers.

Rose
 * Keywords: Red, Flower
 * Source: 4 Roses (plants as one fully grown Rose), seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Red Dye and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Any two flowers.

Blackthorn


 * Keywords: Black, Flower
 * Source: seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Ink Sacs and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Uses for Items dropped: Black dye and grey dye.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Any two flowers.

Cyazint


 * Keywords: Blue, Flower
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Cyan dye and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Uses for Items dropped: Cyan dye.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Any two flowers.

Tulip
 * Keywords: Purple, Flower, Tulip
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Purple dye and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Uses for Items dropped: Purple dye, Pink dye and Magenta dye.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Any two flowers.



Tier 3
Venomilia
 * Keywords: Purple, Flower, Tulip, Poison
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Purple dye and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Uses for Items dropped: Purple dye, Pink dye and Magenta dye.
 * Causes weeds to spread more quickly to nearby Crops.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Tulips + Tulips.

Cocoa
 * Keywords: Brown, Food, Stem
 * Source: Cocoa beans, seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Cocoa beans and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: Two additional dirt blocks placed directly underneath the tilled soil block the Cocoa is planted on will increase this plant's success by 30%.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Melon + Melon, Reed + Reed



Tier 4
Stickreed
 * Keywords: Reed, Resin
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Sticky Resin, Sugar Cane, and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Used to make Sticky Resin, Rum, Paper, and Reeds.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Reed + Reed

Note: Stickreed looks identical to Reed in its first three stages of growth. When harvested on its third stage, it may drop Sugar Cane and seed bags, but no Sticky Resin.



Tier 5
Hops
 * Keywords: Green, Ingredient, Wheat
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Hops and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: High quality light source and air.
 * Used to make beer/rum.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Nether Wart + Nether Wart, Stickreed + Stickreed
 * Warning!: You can get VERY high off this stuff. Use with caution!

Nether Wart Note: Nether Warts can also be planted directly into empty Crops, though its stats will all be 1.
 * Keywords: Red, Nether, Ingredient, Soulsand
 * Source: Nether Fortress, seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Nether Wart and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Hops + Hops, Stickreed + Stickreed

Terra Wart Note: Terra Warts can also be planted directly into empty Crops, though its stats will all be 1. This is one of the hardest plants to cross-breed for. It is therefore highly recommended to cross-breed in darkness to eliminate the spawn of many undesired plants.
 * Keywords: Blue, Aether, Consumable, Snow
 * Source: Seed bags, and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Terra Wart and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Used to remove negative effects, such as poison.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Ferru + Ferru, Nether Wart + Nether Wart, Melon + Melon

Tier 6
Ferru Note: Ferru looks identical to Aurelia and Coffee in its first three stages of growth.
 * Keywords: Grey stem, Metal
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: 'Small Pile of Iron Dust' and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: An Iron Ore block, NOT Iron block, MUST be one of the first two blocks directly under the tilled soil block the Ferru is planted on for the plant grow to maturity.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Terra Wart + Terra Wart

Redwheat
 * Keywords: Red, Redstone, Wheat
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Redstone dust, Wheat, and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: Light level must be between 5-10 (redstone torches are 7) or it won't even cross-breed.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Aurelia + Aurelia, Nether Wart + Nether Wart

Tier 7
Coffee Note: Coffee looks identical to Aurelia and Ferru in its first three stages of growth.
 * Keywords: Leaves, Ingredient, Beans
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Coffee beans and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: none
 * Used for making coffee.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Aurelia + Aurelia, Netherwart+Netherwart

Tier 8
Aurelia Note: Aurelia looks identical to Coffee and Ferru in its first three stages of growth.
 * Keywords: Gold, Leaves, Metal
 * Source: Seed bags and cross-breeding.
 * Drops: Gold nuggets and seed bags.
 * Special conditions for growth: A Gold Ore block, NOT Gold block, MUST be placed underneath the tilled soil block the Aurelia is planted on for the plant grow to maturity.
 * Recommended cross-breeding combos: Ferru + Ferru

Video Tutorials