Berrymaker

Berrymaker are a caste of Dryads, a type of animal added by the Ideology DLC.

Generates berries x40 every two days.

Raw sustenance potential

A single tree can produce enough food for 6.4 simple meals per day, which is enough to feed 3.6 people consistently. Eating the raw berries is enough to feed 2 people consistently. This takes between 7.5 and 5 hours per day.

Comparison to grow zones

Does not require any temperature, light level, etc.

Works year-round and at a constant rate

Requires more work per tile (about .58 hrs work per day per tile, assuming the tree takes 9 tiles and the rest are used for grow zones, and the pawn is level 10 plants or more)

Work speed is not affected by pawn stack factors, only plants skill

max 3.2 nutrition per day (64 berries/day w/ 4 dryads). 0.356 nutrition/day/tile

Rice has .054 nutition/day/tile

1 Pawn can maintain at most 2 trees with plants 10+, meaning each pawn can support itself and another pawn, year-round.

Comparison to hydroponics

Does not require power/major resource investment (at max efficiency, 1 tile of hydroponics requires 18 steel, .25 components, and 47.7 watts)

Not prone to power outages, solar flares, etc. Additionally resistant to fire (dryads put fire out)

Max .136 nutrition/day /tile growing rice

Assuming you are growing potatoes in hydroponics (highest work/nutrition), you get 7 nutrition max/day for 3hrs of work

Assuming you are growing rice in hydroponics (highest nutrition/day), you get 13.1 nutrition a day for 8.6 hrs of work

Assuming you are maintaining 2 trees at 100% connection, you get 6.4 nutrition a day for 10.4 hours of work

Conclusion

Gauranlen trees are incredibly work-intensive but are prone to much fewer issues that would normally impede crop growth. They are more efficient per tile than any other method but require much more space by themselves, these calculations were done assuming grow zones are made between trees, meaning the trees only take 9 tiles. If it is just trees, each takes 25 tiles of space, plus excess for each edge tree. Pruning is not affected by plant work speed, which can be increased in several ways: the new plants specialist role (+70% plant work speed, +30% harvest quantity, activated ability +40% plant work speed to other nearby pawns for a day, every couple of days), field hand (+140% plant work speed), and plants skill. If you have a significant amount of these bonuses on a plants pawn, the time they take to make food is drastically cut, and a single pawn with enough of these bonuses can exceed 300% work speed. Meanwhile trees are hard stuck at minimum time to maintain of 5 hours a day.

I recommend having at most 1 Garanlen Connection per plants pawn and putting the trees in fields. The excess space can be used to grow other crops by the same pawn. If you are in a particularly rough environment (low grow periods/little available land) the hardiness of gauranlen trees allows them to survive, although your pawns may not, so make sure to dress them appropriately. The one weakness is toxic fallout since your pawns will have to be outside to prune, in this situation, give up on the tree and simply have the pawn do other things until the fallout passes. Berry makers may also be good in tribal situations where you do not have access to hydroponics or other means of increasing plant production.

A Gauranlen tree supporting 4 berrymaker dryads can make enough berries for 6.4 simple meals, 4.27 fine meals, or 1.28 lavish meals (note that for the fine and lavish meals multiple food inputs are required, thus you cannot make fine meals only out of berries). The simple meals are enough to feed 3.6 people, which is fairly good for how little space the tree takes. Because it's resistant to many normal crops, I would consider it on par with growing on fertile soil. Also, you can choose where to put it for more efficient hauling.