Mealwood

Mealwood is an early-game crop that produces Meal Lice, a basic food item that can also be cooked into Liceloaf or Pickled Meal. It can be planted in a Planter Box, Farm Tile, or Hydroponic Farm, using Mealwood Seeds obtained by digging up wild Mealwood or uncovering buried objects. Domesticated Mealwood matures in 3 cycles, while wild Mealwood takes 12 cycles to reach maturity.

To grow, Mealwood needs a temperature between 10 °C and 30 °C, air pressure between 150 g and 10 kg, and an atmosphere of Oxygen, Polluted Oxygen, or Carbon Dioxide. Domesticated plants also require 10 kg of Dirt per cycle as fertilizer. Because it does not need irrigation and only asks for Dirt, Mealwood is one of the simplest reliable food crops to set up, especially before a colony has spare water for more advanced farming.

Each domesticated plant produces 600 kcal every 3 cycles, or 200 kcal per cycle. That means a single Duplicant needs about 5 Mealwood plants for steady food production if the harvest is eaten directly. If Meal Lice is cooked into Liceloaf, the same crop provides more calories per cycle, reducing the number of plants needed per Duplicant to a little over 3.5. Pickled Meal does not increase calories, but it improves storage life and gives Cooking skill practice, which can be useful before a dedicated kitchen is established.

Mealwood is especially valuable in the early game because it is easy to sustain and does not depend on water. It is a common choice in the Forest Biome and other areas where water is limited, but long-term farming still requires a dependable Dirt supply, since composting rotten Meal Lice does not replenish what the crop consumes. The plant’s harvest also provides enough calories to support a large base, so upgrades to higher-quality foods are usually pursued for morale rather than sheer food output.

A few practical points stand out:

• Mealwood plants have -10 decor with a 2-tile radius.
• Mealwood Seeds can also be fed to Pacus to domesticate them, after which they excrete Polluted Dirt.
• Wild Mealwood yields the same food item, but at a much slower rate because of its 12-cycle growth time.
• In Spaced Out!, several mutations change Mealwood’s output and growth behavior, including variants that require light, darkness, or altered temperature ranges.

Overall, Mealwood is the standard starter crop for colonies that need a low-tech, low-water food source. Its straightforward requirements, fast growth, and direct upgrade path into cooked foods make it one of the most useful plants in the early colony phase.