Guide to hydroponics

Basics of Botany

Hydroponics and the Botanists who work there are important to the station, especially in longer rounds. Botanists grow plants that the Chef can use for food. Without botany, the station will have to live off of beef jerky and space twinkies, or starve to death.

Your Area

Hydroponics is divided into two rooms. The big section is where you'll spend most of your time growing goods. Trays are available where you grow plants and two vending machines, one with seeds and the other with miscellaneous items such as nutrients and tools for your job. The bio-generator can be used to grind plants and produce things for the station. In tandem is the seed dispenser used to reproduce your product. The northern area is where you can grab most of the equipment needed to work in botany.

Plants require nutrients (fertilizer) and water to grow. They are also bothered by pests and weeds.
Trays come equipped with alerts that flash specific colors to tell you what's happening with your plant.

From left to right -

Green: Ready to harvest.
Red: Low health, caused by weeds/pests/toxins/end of lifespan.
Yellow: Low nutrients.
Blue: Low water.

Tools that are of use in botany -

Plant Analyzer: Shows detailed detailed plant statistics. Very useful for growing fragile plants like Ambrosia Deus.
Cultivator: Kills Weeds.
Plant Bag: Collects up to 50 items or 100 seeds from your harvest. Useful for moving those into the fridge or biogenerator.
Wrench: Used to move your trays around.
Wirecutters: Used to set up the irrigation system. If 30u or more of water is put into trays while the irrigation is set up, water will be shared across trays. This will also distribute things like mutagen and plant killer.
Hatchet: Chops tower-caps into planks, chops other things. This is also a robust tool that fits in pockets.
Shovel: Digs up grass floors and cleaning the dirt.
Spade: Removes and destroys plants in a tray.
All-In-One Grinder: This is how you extract reagents from plants - throw them in and hit the "grind" button.
Portable Seed Extractor: This can harvest and pick up plants and turn up to 100 plants into seeds. Less efficient than the machine.

Plant growing 101

Take some seeds from the vendor and put them into the trays. Now, take a look at the tray with a plant analyzer. For now, you only need to pay attention to the bottom five stats - Water/Nutrition and Weeds/Toxic/Pest levels.
Now, fill a bucket from the water tank and grab fertilizer from the vending machine. You get rid of weeds with the cultivator and remove pests with pest spray. Chemistry can give you better chemicals for this, which will be explained later in the guide.
Some plants have a varied growth times, such as wheat growing faster while watermelons or apple trees take a little longer before you can harvest from them.
Once your tray flashes green, you're set to harvest. If you want to replicate the plant to continue growing more, just insert it into the seed extractor.

Biogenerator

The Biogenerator makes items out of the nutriment in plants. As a rule of thumb: More nutriment = more biomass. Watermelons and pumpkins are commonly used due to their 20% nutriment boost trait.
To get biomass, grab a spare bucket and equip the machine with it, then use the plant bag to put fruits inside.
If you somehow run out of fertilizer in the vendors, remember you can print the three standard fertilizers here. Keep in mind that you can craft a whole bunch of useful items from the leather/cloth sheets the biogenerator creates.

DNA Extractor

The DNA extractor allows you to extract and modify seed stats and traits. This machine is what lets you become a Chemist on speed.

This is a little complex, so look at: Advanced Botany

Stats, reagents and traits

Three things determine how your plant will turn out: Their stats, reagents and traits.

Stats

Stats determine whether your plants are small and grow slowly, or are big and fast-growing.

Click expand to see what stats do:

Potency: The most important stat (0 to 100). This affects the amount of chemicals in the plant, though some have additional effects, such as stun length for bananas.

To get the amount of a given chemical in a plant, multiply the reagent in the chart by the potency: for example, 10% nutriment will be 5 nutriment at 50 potency.

Yield: How much product you get each harvest. Between 0 and 10. Pay attention to this, because if it drops to 0, you won't harvest anything.
Production Speed: How fast your plant reaches harvest. Between 1 and 10 -- the lower the faster. The plant has to wait (Production Speed) age cycles before each harvest.
Maturation Speed: Age cycles before the plant can start production. The first harvest will be (Maturation Speed + Production Speed).
Lifespan: When the age is above lifespan, the plant starts losing health. Between 10 and 100. Only important for plants with the Perennial Growth trait.
Age: Age of the plant. Only relevant in terms of the lifespan stat.
Endurance: Max health. Between 10 and 100. Not very useful, unless you leave your garden often.
Weed growth rate: Determines how quickly weeds grow in the plant tray. Only relevant with very high values.
Weed vulnerability: The higher, the more easily a plant is overtaken by weeds. Only relevant with very high values.

Reagents/Content

This determines what chemicals are present in a grown plant - the DNA extractor lets you extract and splice these.
With a bit of creativity, you can mix your own mutagen, produce unique healing chemicals or turn tomatoes into napalm grenades. Solid Chemistry knowledge will help you out immensely.
For a detailed list, check out: Plant reference chart

Traits

Traits give your plants unique properties. There are plenty - Perennial Growth for example lets you harvest plants multiple times.
These can be transferred, just like reagents.

Click expand to see a list of traits:

Trait name	Properties
Bioluminescence	Causes the plant to glow, emitting light equal to 10% of potency. Varieties include Shadow Emission and Red Electrical Glow.
Strong Bioluminescence	Causes the plant to glow, emitting light equal to 20% of potency.
Bluespace Activity	Gives the plant bluespace properties, making it teleport people hit if the plant has Liquid Contents, and on slip if it has Slippery Skin. Max radius is determined by potency.
Capacitive Cell Production	Plants with this trait can be made into batteries with the addition of wire. Electrical Activity increases the cell's maximum charge.
Densified Chemicals	Doubles the reagent capacity of the plant. Keep in mind that reagent traits will still add a fixed amount to the plant (this just increases how much can fit in it).
Electrical Activity	Gives the plant electrical charge, making it recharge batteries when eaten; it will also electrocute on slip if it also has Slippery Skin and on hit if it has Liquid Contents.
Fire Resistance	Makes the seeds and produce fireproof.
Fungal Vitality	The plant acquires mushroom-like properties, removing the need for water and greatly reducing damage from lack of light. Minimum yield is always 1 and the tray can't be overtaken by weeds.
Gaseous Decomposition	Plants with this trait emit a smoke cloud when squashed, spewing reagents everywhere. Requires Liquid Contents to be useful. Only available through Strange seeds.
Hypodermic Prickles	Plants with this trait will sting when thrown (or slipped on with Liquid Contents), transferring a portion of their chemicals to the target.
Liquid Contents	Causes the plant to squash when thrown or slipped on (Slippery Skin), applying the reagents inside on the target and destroying the plant.
Perennial Growth	Plants with this trait don't die on harvest (and can be harvested multiple times).
~~Separated Chemicals~~	~~Makes plant reagents not react with each other until squashed. Otherwise, they will mix on harvest. Requires Liquid Contents to be useful.~~ Removed January 2019.
Slippery Skin	Causes the plant, or any products of the plant, to become slippery. The stun time is (Potency * 0.08), divided by 3 unless the plant has lube or is a banana. Maximum stun is 7 seconds. Triggers Hypodermic Prickes and Liquid Contents when combined with them.
Weed Adaptation	The plant acquires weed-like properties, removing the need for nutrients. Plant growth doesn't get slowed by weeds and the tray can't be overtaken by them.

Plant reference chart

All you need to know about plants - their reagents, traits and what they can mutate into.

Plant Chart (mouse over the reagents to have a brief effect description)

Name	Type	Seed	Potting	Product	Reagent Production	Traits	Available from	Mutates into
Ambrosia deus	Normal				5% nutriment, 15% omnizine, 15% synaptizine, 10% space drugs, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Ambrosia vulgaris	Ambrosia gaia
Ambrosia gaia	Normal				6% nutriment, 5% earthsblood, 5% vitamin		Mutate Ambrosia deus
Ambrosia vulgaris	Normal	File:Ambrosiavulgarisseed.png	File:Ambrosiavulgarisplant.png	File:Ambrosiavulgaris.png	5% nutriment, 10% bicaridine, 10% kelotane, 15% space drugs, 10% toxin, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Ambrosia deus
Apple	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Hard cider	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Gold apple
Bamboo	Normal				Harvesting results in bamboo logs. Cut these logs with a hatchet to produce stackable bamboo cuttings. Use the bamboo cuttings in hand to craft a either a punji stick trap (paralyzes and hurts those who step on it) or a blow gun (makeshift syringe gun that takes time to fire and deals stamina and suffocation damage to the user).	Perennial Growth	Mutate Sugarcane, Exotic Seeds Crate
Banana	Normal				10% banana juice, 10% potassium, 4% vitamin, 2% nutriment. Fermentation: Banana Honk	Slippery Skin, Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Exotic Seeds Crate	Mimana, Blue-space banana
Berry	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Gin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Glow-berry, Poison-berry
Blood tomato	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% blood, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Bloody Mary	Liquid Contents, Perennial Growth	Mutate Tomato
Blue-space banana	Normal				20% singulo, 10% banana juice, 4% vitamin, 2% nutriment	Slippery Skin, Bluespace Activity, Perennial Growth	Mutate Banana
Blue-space tomato	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% singulo, 20% space lube, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Laughter	Slippery Skin, Bluespace Activity, Liquid Contents, Perennial Growth	Mutate Blue tomato
Blue cherry	Normal				7% nutriment, 7% sugar	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cherry
Blue tomato	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% space lube, 4% vitamin	Slippery Skin, Perennial Growth	Mutate Tomato	Blue-space tomato
Blumpkin	Normal				20% ammonia, 10% chlorine, 20% nutriment	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, mutate Pumpkin
Cabbage	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Replica pod
Cannabis	Normal				15% space drugs, 35% lipolicide	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked)	Rainbow weed, Deathweed, Lifeweed, Omega weed
Carpet	Normal				2% nutriment, 5% hydrogen	Perennial Growth	Mutate Grass
Carrot	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin, 25% oculine		MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Parsnip
Chanterelle	Mushroom				10% nutriment	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate, can overtake a tray
Cherry	Normal				7% nutriment, 7% sugar	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Blue cherry
Cherry Bomb	Normal				10% nutriment, 10% sugar, 70% blackpowder	Perennial Growth	Only available from Xenobiology
Chili	Normal				4% nutriment, 25% capsaicin, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Ghost chili, Ice Pepper
Cocoa	Normal				10% nutriment, 25% cocoa. Fermentation: Creme de Cacao	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Vanilla
Coffee arabica	Normal				10% coffee powder, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Kahlua	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Coffee robusta
Coffee robusta	Normal				10% coffee powder, 4% vitamin, 10% ephedrine	Perennial Growth	Mutate Coffee arabica
Combustible Lemon	Normal				5% nutriment (can be thrown like an IED)	Perennial Growth	Mutate Lemon
Corn	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% corn oil, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Whiskey		MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Snapcorn
Corpse Flower	Normal				Right before it blooms, it starts producing miasma until harvested. Miasma production only works around normal pressure. Potency determines how high the pressure must be for miasma production to work. 50-60 potency is needed in standard pressure. Yield determines the output rate of the miasma.		Mutate Starthistle
Cotton	Normal				None. Can be turned into fabrics by using a loom, buildable with planks.		MegaSeed Servitor	Durathread
Death berry	Normal				10% nutriment, 8% coniine, 10% tirizene, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Poison-berry
Death nettle	Weed				50% fluorosulphuric acid, 50% sulphuric acid	Perennial Growth, Weed Adaptation, Hypodermic Prickles	Mutate Nettle, weed mutation
Deathweed	Normal				35% cyanide, 15% space drugs, 15% lipolicide	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cannabis
Destroying angel	Mushroom				10% amatoxin, 4% mushroom hallucinogen, 20% amanitin	Fungal Vitality	Mutate Fly amanita
Durathread	Normal				None. Can be turned into durable fabrics by using a loom, buildable with planks.		Mutate Cotton
Eggplant	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Egg-plant
Egg-plant	Normal				10% nutriment, egg inside. Fermentation: Eggnog	Perennial Growth	Mutate Eggplant, Exotic Seeds Crate
Embershroom	Normal				4% tinea luxor, 2% vitamin, 2% space drugs	Fungal Metabolism, Bioluminescence, Fire Resistance	Lavaland
Extradimensional orange	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Triple Sec	Perennial Growth	Mutate Orange
Fly amanita	Mushroom				35% amatoxin, 4% mushroom hallucinogen, 10% growth serum	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked), Exotic Seeds Crate, can overtake a tray	Destroying angel
Fruiting Cactus	Normal				2% vitamin, 2% nutriment, 4% vitrium froth	Fire Resistance	Lavaland
Garlic	Normal				15% garlic juice, 10% nutriment		MegaSeed Servitor
Gatfruit	Normal				10% sulfur, 10% carbon, 7% nitrogen, 5% potassium, a goddamn .357 revolver	Perennial Growth	Xenobiology
Geranium	Normal				5% nutriment, 20% bicaridine		Mutate Poppy
Glow-berry	Normal				10% nutriment, 25% uranium, 20% iodine, 4% vitamin. Luminosity: 20%.	Strong Bioluminescence, Perennial Growth	Mutate Berry
Ghost chili	Normal				4% nutriment, 55% capsaicin, 30% condensed capsaicin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Chili
Glowshroom	Mushroom				10% radium, 10% phosphorus, 4% nutriment. Glow: 10%	Bioluminescence, Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked)	Glowcap
Glowcap	Mushroom				10% teslium. Glow: 10%.	Electrical Activity, Red Electrical Glow, Fungal Vitality	Mutate Glowshroom
Gold apple	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% gold, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Apple
Grapes	Normal				10% nutriment, 10% sugar, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Wine	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Green grapes
Grass	Normal				2% nutriment, 5% hydrogen	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Carpet
Green grapes	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% kelotane, 10% sugar, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Cognac		Mutate Grapes
Harebell	Weed				4% nutriment. Fermentation: Vermouth	Weed Adaptation	Can overtake a a tray
Holymelon	Normal				20% holy water, 4% vitamin, 10% nutriment	Perennial Growth	Mutate Watermelon
Ice Pepper	Normal				2% nutriment, 25% frost oil, 2% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Chili
Inocybe Mushroom	Normal				4% mindbreaker toxin, 8% entropic polypnium, 4% mushroom hallucinogen	Fungal Metabolism, Fire Resistance	Lavaland
Killer tomato	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin, can be awoken. Fermentation: Demon's Blood	Liquid Contents	Mutate Tomato
Koibean	Normal				5% nutriment, 10% carpotoxin, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Soybean
Kudzu	Weed				2% nutriment, 4% charcoal	Perennial Growth, Weed Adaptation	Mutagen weed mutation	Special, see this.
Lemon	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Combustible Lemon
Liberty-cap	Mushroom				2% nutriment, 25% mushroom hallucinogen	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked), Exotic Seeds Crate, weed mutation
Lifeweed	Normal				35% omnizine, 15% space drugs, 15% lipolicide	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cannabis
Lily	Normal				5% nutriment, 20% bicaridine	Perennial Growth	Mutate Poppy
Lime	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, mutate Orange	Orange
Meatwheat	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin. When harvested, you can get "meat" and blood from this.		Mutate Wheat
Mimana	Normal				10% nothing, 10% mute toxin, 2% nutriment. Fermentation: Silencer	Slippery Skin, Perennial Growth	Exotic Seeds Crate, Mutate Banana
Moonflower	Normal				2% nutriment, 2% vitamin, 20% moonshine. Fermentation: Absinthe		Mutate Sunflower
Nettle	Weed				50% sulphuric acid	Perennial Growth, Weed Adaptation	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked), Exotic Seeds Crate, can overtake a tray	Death nettle
Novaflower	Normal				25% condensed capsaicin, 30% capsaicin, 4% nutriment		Mutate Sunflower
Oat	Normal				4% nutrient. Fermentation: Ale		Mutate Wheat
Omega weed	Normal				30% space drugs, 30% mindbreaker toxin, 15% mercury, 15% lithium, 15% atropine, 15% haloperidol, 15% methamphetamine, 15% capsaicin, 15% barber's aid, 15% bath salts, 15% itching powder, 15% crank, 15% krokodil, 15% histamine, 15% lipolicide	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cannabis
Onion Sprouts	Normal				4% vitamin, 10% nutriment			Red Onion Sprouts
Orange	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Triple Sec	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, mutate Lime	Lime
Parsnip	Normal				5% vitamin, 5% nutriment		Mutate Carrot
Plump helmet	Mushroom				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Manly Dorf	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked), Exotic Seeds Crate, can overtake a tray	Walking mushroom
Pineapple	Normal				20% nutriment, 4% water, 2% vitamin		MegaSeed Servitor
Poison-berry	Normal				10% nutriment, 15% cyanide, 20% tirizene, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Berry	Death berry
Poisoned apple	Normal				50% cyanide, 4% vitamin, 1% nutriment		Xenobiology
Polypore Mushroom	Normal				6% sugar, 4% ethanol, 6% stabilizing agent, 2% mint. You can craft mushroom bowls from this.	Fungal Metabolism, Fire Resistance	Lavaland
Poppy	Normal				5% nutriment, 20% bicaridine. Fermentation: Vermouth		MegaSeed Servitor	Geranium, Lily
Porcini Mushroom	Normal				6% nutriment, 4% vitrium froth, 4% nicotine	Fungal Metabolism, Fire Resistance	Lavaland
Potato	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Can be turned into a potato battery by using cable coil on it. Increase potency and add the Electrical Activity trait for higher capacity. Fermentation: Vodka	Capacitive Cell Production	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Sweet Potato
Pumpkin	Normal				20% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Blumpkin
Rainbow weed	Normal				15% mindbreaker toxin, 35% lipolicide	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cannabis
Redbeet	Normal				5% nutriment, 5% vitamin	Densified Chemicals	Mutate Whitebeet
Red Onion Sprouts	Normal				4% vitamin, 10% nutriment, 5% tear juice		Mutate Onion Sprouts
Rice	Normal				4% nutrient. Fermentation: Sake		MegaSeed Servitor
Reishi	Mushroom				35% charcoal, 35% morphine	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor (hacked), can overtake a tray
Replica pod	Normal				Special		MegaSeed Servitor, Exotic Seeds Crate, Mutate Cabbage
Shadowshroom	Normal				20% radium, 4% nutriment	Shadow Emission, Fungal Metabolism	Mutate Glowshrooms
Snapcorn	Normal				10% nutriment, 20% corn oil, 4% vitamin		Mutate Corn
Soybean	Normal				5% nutriment, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Koibean
Space tobacco	Normal				3% nutriment, 8% nicotine, 5% salbutamol		Mutate Tobacco
Starthistle	Weed				None		Can overtake a tray	Corpse Flower
Steelcap	Mushroom				None. You can harvest metal rods from this.	Fungal Vitality	Mutate Towercap
Strange seeds	Normal		File:Question.gif	File:Question.gif	Random, read this. Fermentation: Wine with 10-150 boozepower, and tiny chance of 200.	Random	Hacked vending machine, cargo crates
Sugarcane	Normal				25% sugar. Fermentation: Rum	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Bamboo
Sunflower	Normal				8% corn oil, 4% nutriment		MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Moonflower, Novaflower
Sweet Potato	Normal				10% nutriment, 10% sugar, 10% vitamin. Fermentation: Sbiten		Mutate Potato
Tea aspera	Normal				10% tea powder, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Tea astra
Tea astra	Normal				10% tea powder, 10% synaptizine, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	Mutate Tea aspera
Tobacco	Normal				3% nicotine, 3% nutriment. Fermentation: Creme de Menthe		MegaSeed Servitor	Space tobacco
Tomato	Normal				10% nutriment, 4% vitamin. Fermentation: Enzyme	Liquid Content, Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Blood, Blue or Killer tomato
Towercap	Mushroom				None. You can harvest wood from this.	Fungal Vitality	MegaSeed Servitor, can overtake a tray	Steelcap
Vanilla	Normal				25% vanilla, 10% nutriment. Fermentation: Vanilla	Perennial Growth	Mutate Cocoa
Walking mushroom	Mushroom				15% nutriment, 5% vitamin	Fungal Vitality	Mutate Plump helmet
Watermelon	Normal				20% nutriment, 20% water, 4% vitamin	Perennial Growth	MegaSeed Servitor	Holymelon
Wheat	Normal				4% nutriment. Fermentation: Beer		MegaSeed Servitor, Seeds Crate	Oat, Meatwheat
Whitebeet	Normal				5% nutriment, 20% sugar, 4% vitamin		MegaSeed Servitor	Redbeet

Chemicals

A lot of chemicals influence plants - get these from the vending machine, Chemistry or by growing your own!

Click expand to see a list of chemicals:

Fertilizers

Nutriment: A fertilizer that adds 1u of nutrient to the tray and heals plants. You can get it by putting your plants and regular food in the grinder. Heals the plant.
Ammonia: Similar to nutriment, but also increases yield. Get it from the Chemist or hack the Nutri-Vend to get this.
Diethylamine: Even better than Ammonia - this adds 2u of nutrient to the tray, increases yield even more, heals the plant AND also kills pests. Get it the same way you get Ammonia.
Saltpetre: Heals your plant, increases potency and decreases production time. Doesn't add nutrient to the tray.
Robust Harvest: Increases plant yield by 30% without mutating it. Doesn't work on plants with 0 yield.

Pest Removal

Pest Killer: Kills pests, and adds a small amount of toxicity.
Weed Killer: Same as above, but for Weeds.

Mutation

E-Z-Nutrient: Makes your plant mutate once every time it's ready for harvesting, and has no effect on the yield.
Left 4 Zed: Makes your plant mutate twice, but the yield will be 1 at best - if the plant's yield is 0, then nothing is produced! You'll have to use another mutagen to harvest the normal yield of the plant.
Unstable Mutagen: Used to randomly mutate plants - 5u for a chance to change the plant type, 1u/2u to only change stats.
Radium and Uranium: Also usable for mutation (10u for plant type, 2u/5u for stats), but damages plants and adds toxicity. Radium is more damaging.

Plant Meds

Ash: Heals your plant and kills weeds, but adds only half a unit of nutrient to the tray.
Charcoal: Makes your plant less toxic. You can get it by whining to anyone who works in Medbay.
Cryoxadone: Heals your plant, via ~~miracles~~ science. Also lowers toxicity. Don't expect the Chemist to give this to you, but the medbay probably has extra beakers of this.
Holy water: If you can get the Chaplain's attention and make him bless your water, it will heal your plant a bit.

Unorthodox chemicals

Soda Water: Mostly adds water, but also heals the plant and adds nutrient to the tray by a tiny amount.
Milk: Adds some water and a tiny but of nutrient to the tray.
Beer: Adds a bit of water and nutrient to the tray, but damages the plant a little.
Blood: Feeds both your plant and pests.
Virus Food: Adds nutrient to the tray while damaging the plant.
Nicotine: Kills pests while adding toxicity.

The bad stuff

Sugar: Makes pests and weeds grow stronger. Unless you plan to use unstable mutagen to unleash giant spiders or Kudzu upon the station, it's of no use.
Toxin: Increases toxicity. Good job!
Plant-B-Gone, Sulphuric Acid, Fluorosulfuric Acid: Damages the plant, adds toxicity and kills weeds. What do you think would happen?
Fluorine, Chlorine: Same as above, but also drains water.
Phosphorus: Same as Flourine/Chlorine, but adds nutrients to the tray instead of toxicity. Just use a spade.
Napalm: Kills weeds, hurts plant and adds toxicity. This is just going downhill. Unless your plant has the fireproof trait, you might as well space the whole tray. On fireproof plants it will just kill weeds.
Strange Reagent: Is supposed to spawn hostile plant creatures but currently doesn't work.

Beekeeping

Bees greatly increase plant yield, potency and the probability of you getting lynched. Great stuff, and very useful even if you're no traitor!

For more info, click here for the guide on beepeeking.

Advanced Botany

This is where you get to PLAY GOD and mess with the stats, reagents and traits of plants.

Using the DNA manipulator

1. Go to the locker in the back and take out the box of plant data disks.
2. Load a disk into the machine along with any seed of choice.
3. Extract any gene, this will destroy the seed and save it to the disk.
4. Put in another seed.
5. You can now modify the seed's stats and genes based on what's on the plant data disk.

Obviously, this can be quite powerful in the right hands, and even for more basic tasks it can be a major boon.

It is worth noting, however, that the DNA manipulator has an upper limit on how high a stat can be when you try to extract it and save it to disk, and any stats higher than that will be brought down to that cap. Though these caps can be lowered or eliminated if you can get RnD to upgrade your machine, at round-start the caps are very bad, with certain stats like production speed being capped at a level worse than what nearly every plant has initially. Traits, on the other hand, can be extracted just fine no matter what parts are used.

Useful genes from default seeds:

Wheat has a production speed of 1, the fastest possible.
Tower-caps have very long lifespans (around 80), as well as potency and endurance stats of 50.
Tobacco plants have a yield of 10, the cap for that stat.
Apples have the perennial growth trait, which allows for you to get multiple harvests from a single plant.
Watermelon has an endurance nearly on par with tower-caps, making it a good substitute when starting out so you can avoid using up all of your starting tower-cap seeds.

Mutations

You can mutate plants to A) change stats or B) mutate them into a different subspecies. To do this in a timely manner, you'll need to work with the Chemistry department.

The agonizingly slow way is using E-Z Nutriment to make the plant mutate once every time it's ready to harvest. Left 4 Zed makes it mutate twice, but kills the yield!

You can speed up the process to bearable levels by asking your local Chemist for a few bottles of Unstable Mutagen.

Pour 5 units on your plant and prepare for...

10% chance of mutation into a related species. This destroys the old plant and plants a new one. See the Plant reference chart for information on these mutations.
10% chance of the plant losing lots of health instantly. The plant can die because of this
15% chance of heavy stat mutation with a 3% chance of a new trait appearing.
15% chance of normal stat mutation.
20% chance of nothing. You get a message when this happens.
10% chance of weeds mutating. If weed level is less than 5, nothing happens, otherwise you get a random, special mutated weed (Kudzu, Deathnettle, Destroying Angel, Liberty Cap).
10% chance of pests mutating. Again, if pest level is less than 5, nothing happens. Otherwise, spiderlings are spawned.
- This is bad. If the spiderlings escape, they'll grow big and you'll likely get lynched.

Or, if you don't want to bother with species mutation, pour 2 units for a guaranteed heavy stat mutation with a 3% chance of a new trait appearing, or even 1 for a guaranteed normal stat mutation. This method is safe even if you don't have backup seeds, and you can use a bottle for it.

You can use radium and uranium, but they cause ill effects, and if you can get radium, you can get mutagen.

R&D can also research a wonderful thing called a Floral Somatoray. It has two options: increase yield and mutate the plant. In yield more mode, every time you fire it at the plant, there is a chance the yield will increase. The chance becomes very small when you reach high levels, but it's very useful for low-yield plants. It can even raise yield from zero! In mutation mode, it will always induce a normal stat mutation.

Fixing awful stats

Mutating plants has a chance of really ruining stats. Luckily, there are a few ways to fix them:

Unstable Mutagen. Using 1u slightly changes stats, 2u has more drastic effects.
Saltpetre. Increases potency and decreases production time.
Floral Somatoray. Increases yield and works as a substitute for Unstable Mutagen.

Dude weeds

Trays, whether empty or occupied by plants, can be occasionally overtaken by a weed if their level is 5 or more. In that case the old plant is destroyed, and a new one will sprout in its place.

Possible plants include:

1/6 chance for Reishi/Starshittle.
1/9 chance for Nettle/Harebell/Amanita/Chanterelle/Tower Cap/Plump Helmets

Using 5u of unstable mutagen on high weed level trays results in different plants:

Kudzu, Deathnettle, Destroying Angel, Liberty Cap

Other Notes

Growing your own mutagen

Not robust enough to steal a chem dispenser? Try this out.

First, plant pumpkins and mutate them into blumpkins.
Now, insert their Chlorine production trait into glowshrooms and remove the Nutriment one.
That's it! You now have a plant that grows unstable mutagen - just pop the produce into the grinder.
You might want to add Densified Chemicals from Redbeets as well as Perennial Growth to optimize your harvest.

Other ways to mutagen

Chemistry is ~~busy curing the plague~~ too high to help you out?

Bad idea: Steal a chem dispenser. This will start a blood feud and is one of the biggest reasons why Botanists are hated by some. Think of it as someone stealing all your plant trays.
Better: Ask Medbay to print you a spare chem dispenser board. After very basic research (Biological Technology), the medical protolathe is able to print chem dispenser boards.
Or: Grab the spare chem dispenser board from tech storage. The AI, silicons and all members of the Engineering department can let you in.
For stock parts: Print them from a public autolathe (if such has been built) or ask RnD/Engineering for a part replacer with stock parts. The parts are:
2 matter bins, 1 capacitor, 1 micro-manipulator, 1 power cell, 1 glass sheet.
For stock parts you can also disassemble a hydroponics tray and a cell charger. A cell can then be found or gotten from disassembling a cyborg recharger.

Upgrading plant trays

Composting enough plants that contain Earthsblood (for example Ambrosia Gaia) into a tray will give it a golden shine. Now it will no longer require water, fertilizer or weed/pest removal.

This is great in combination with plants that have the Perennial Growth trait! A lot of Botanists will upgrade their trays before getting started with actual hydroponics.

Upgraded trays permanently contain the last fertilizer you used before the upgrade. Robust Harvest is usually the best choice.

Instead of keeping the original Gaia plant that most likely has gimped stats - insert the Earthsblood production trait into a more robust plant.

If your DNA extractor hasn't been upgraded yet: Wheat has a production speed of 1 and good overall stats. If you're lucky, your station will have 50 potency Wheat bushels just lying around at roundstart.

You can speed up the process by removing all contents but Earthsblood production and adding the Densified Chemicals (Redbeet) trait.

Replica Pod Cloning

Replica pods can be used to grow dead people back to life - even when their brain and head are missing.

To clone someone, follow these simple steps:

Take a blood sample from the body using a syringe.
Inject it into the bag of seeds.
Plant the seeds.
Let the plant grow and then harvest it.
If the ghost of the corpse was present and accepted, the person will be cloned as a Podman.
If there was no ghost present, the resulting harvest will simply produce a new pack of seeds.

The podmen are a little different from normal humans. E.g. they regenerate in light but suffer in darkness and don't get attacked by bees.

Cabbage can be mutated into Replica Pod.

Strange Seeds

Strange seeds (from hacked vendors or cargo crates) have completely random reagents and traits.

Notable examples are:

Gaseous Decomposition
Nitroglycerin
Microbes (Fungal Tuberculosis)
Any drink, like Gin Tonic or Beepsky Smash
Glitter
Plasmaman Mutation Toxin
Hell Water

Of course, this is pretty gimmicky and unreliable.

Kudzu

Kudzu is a weed that can appear when adding 5u Unstable Mutagen to a tray with a weed level of 5 or above. The tray version of kudzu will grow normally in its tray. When harvested it will produce kudzu pods. The kudzu pod is like any other fruit/vegetable and can be eaten or grinded. To create wild-spreading kudzu, you must put a kudzu pod into a seed extractor, which will create packs of kudzu seeds. Then activate a kudzu seed in your hand to start planting wild-spreading kudzu on the floor.

Some plant stats will affect the wild-spreading version of kudzu in specific ways:

Potency of the seed will make kudzu mutate more on spread, the chance to mutate on each new piece is [potency / 10]
Production will affect how fast the kudzu can spread, usual kudzu spreads at a rate of 20% of the amount of pieces per tick but no more than 30, production changes the cap [30 * production / 50] and the percent of processed pieces per tick [20 * (production / 50)]

Killing the last piece of kudzu will create a kudzu seed in its place with all the ackumulated mutations saved in the seed. So if you reactivate it, the new kudzu on the floor will have all the same mutations the seed had, and will spread it to all its progenitors. You can examine a wild kudzu to see what mutations it has. When mutating it typically changes color.

Kudzu can gain mutations only on spread, here is the list of all of them:

Click expand to see Kudzu traits and mutations:

CO2 consumption - positive mutation, consumes CO2 from the air
Space covering - positive mutation, makes vines grow vine floors over space Removed as of August 23 2017.
Light - positive mutation, about 40% of the vines with this mutation emit light slightly more powerful than PDA
Transparency - positive mutation, makes vines look-through
Toxins consumption - positive mutation, absorbs plasma from the air
Bluespace vines - minor negative mutation, makes vines be able to grow through anything Removed as of August 23 2017.
Explosive - minor negative mutation, on death vines with this mutation explode with 0,0,2 power, so clusters of this vine will chain-explode one after another
Fire resistant - minor negative mutation, makes vines ignore fire damage, be it plasma fires or welders
Vine eating - minor negative mutation, vines with this mutation will eat vines without it
Toxicity - negative mutation, eating vine with this mutation or walking thought it will cause you toxin damage
Aggressive spreading - negative mutation, on spreading vines will cause effect of mini-explosion on the tile they spread to, mobs buckled by this vine will also experience effects akin to minor explosion
O2 consumption - negative mutation, absorbs O2 from the air around
N2 consumption - negative mutation, absorbs N2 from the air
Thorns - negative mutation, makes mobs touching or going through vines recieve physical damage
Hardening - negative mutation, makes vines not die fast from sharp objects, but makes non-sharp objects(hands included) be more effective agaisnt them, on the full maturation block the passage
Flowering - negative mutation, makes vines very entangly and spawns harmful flowers occasionally, flowers after destruction spawn flower mob that is agressive and attacks

Adding special chemicals to the tray when the seeds are growing will affect the specific kudzu mutations:

Adding 5u of welding fuel will remove random positive mutation with a 20% probability
Adding 5u of phenol will remove a random minor negative mutation with a 20% probability
Adding 5u of sterilizine will remove a random negative mutation with a 20% probability
Adding 15u of blood will change the production value of the seeds by a random number in the range from -5 to +15
Adding 5u of amatoxin will change the production value of the seeds by a random number in the range from -15 to +5
Adding 5u of plasma will change the potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from -15 to +5
Adding 10u of holy water will change a potency value of the seeds by a random number in the range from -5 to +15

Sandstone and Soil

If you pick up the grass and use it (click on it in your hand), you will prepare astroturf. Get a crowbar and remove some floor tiles, then place astroturf in their place. In addition to looking nice, it can be used to get some sand. Just dig it with your spade and you'll get two piles. Now, pick up the sand and use it; you will make a sandstone brick. Using three bricks, you can make a soil plot, which is like a tray, except you can walk over it and there are no lights. You can also build a sandstone door with 10 bricks.

Science can build hydroponics trays. They can also upgrade them by replacing the matter bins, and this increases the water and nutrient capacity of the tray.

Wood and Drying Racks

First you need to get some tower-caps, grow them and harvest them. You can then use hatchet (and some other things, but it's not important) on the logs to chop some planks. They have many uses: you can make chairs, tables, wooden floors and so on. A unique thing here is a drying rack. You can use it to dry a plant, and then smoke it. First, build a rack with 10 planks. Then, grab a plant you want to dry and put it in the rack. Click on the rack and toggle drying so that the red arrows light up. Give it a few seconds and it's done.

Note: you can dry any plant, and smoking it will give you all chemicals that were in it. You can smoke dried apples if you want, and get nutriment from them.

Fermentation Barrel

You can craft wooden barrels with the crafting menu (under tribal), which requires 30 wood planks . Clicking it will toggle it between open and closed. When open you can insert plants or liquid. When closed you can draw liquid by using a container on it.

Inserting a plant into the barrel will ferment the plant after a few seconds (even if not closing it). This will grind the plant, adding all the plant's contained reagents to the barrel. But it can also add an additional reagent depending on plant used. Most plants will create a special wine with varied boozepower depending on plant used. Some plants will create other reagents than wine, and some plants will not work at all.

Things You Can Make Out of Your Plants

~~Separated Chemicals + Liquid Contents lets you grow grenades. Glow-berry Uranium + Towercap Iron = EMP. Watermelon Water + Banana Potassium = Boom.~~ Separated chems trait removed january 2019.
Add some cable to a potato to make a potato battery. Botany cells have potential to be better than bluespace cells.
Glowberries and glowshrooms, as the name suggests, glow.
You can carve a pumpkin with a hatchet. Carved pumpkins can be worn and you can toggle them to emit a weak light.
You can make a cob-pipe out of a corn cob.
You can carve a carrot with a hatchet to make a shiv. It's not very strong but it's good at slicing things.
Flowers and ambrosia can be worn on your head.
Add dried ambrosia, wheat, tea aspera tips or tobacco leaves to a tower cap log to make a torch.
Dried ambrosia, tobacco or any mutations of those are able to be smoked from wrapping paper, found in smoking vending machines. You can also grind them and put the liquid in an e-cig.

Todo list for this guide

Add missing/fix outdated entries in the plant reference chart
Add some icons and pictures to break up the wall of text

Another guide

Since Botany is relatively easy to learn but hard to master, here is an extra guide that focuses on a more practical, step-by-step point of view. Also includes a lot of extra "recipes" for what you can turn your plants into.

[Click here for that long ass bonus guide.] (its old as hell though, and addition of grey bull helps you not need gloves)