After seeing more and more great posts on here about the work people are inspired to by Luciano's current challenge, I stepped back for one second and thought about why I haven't had the motivation to go along with this month's challenge. I realised the reason was pretty simple; I have no realistic, well thought-out vision for how exactly agriculture in (central) Kojo is supposed to look like.
A short disclaimer in the beginning; to the north, in more mountainous areas, I'm slowly developing a more realistic land coverage, and I imagine agriculture there to focus mostly on cattle and hay (if any), and in the eastern portion, though relatively flat, I also mostly envision quite dense forest coverage. The complete western half of the country is a story on it's own, as I'll try to shape it into a mix of very sparely populated, not very fertile grassland, prairie, heath etc... if you have any advice on that as well, your comments are of course very welcome ;) On the coasts I haven't really gotten to anything agricultural yet, but I think I will have many real life examples for the swampy river delta area around Jaka (looking at you, Netherlands!) and the rest should work out with the respective hinterland.
What I'm really struggling with however is the central, densely populated part of the country. For example, when I mapped some fields around Rō, really the only thing I could come up with was looking at how big farms in central and western Europe are (since I want Kojo to have an "old-world", non-griddy character) and then randomly assigning all kinds of crops. It looks "good" as a "background" for the city, but doesn't really tell a story.
Looking at this climate chart I should try to stay vaguely in between Chicago and Atlanta climate wise; if I remember correctly that map was purposefully a bit "off" of real world values, as too many countries would've found themselves in a way to hot climate, and instead gives more space to temperate climate zones. At 35° North Kojo would be on one height with northern Africa or central Japan, so either a very hot and dry or a humid subtropical climate.
Now, looking around Atlanta (I consider Chicago to be somewhat too continental, I think it would be too far of a stretch to have regular snow fall in central Kojo), I don't really understand what I see there on real world OSM. Of course, no offense to anyone living there, I'm sure it makes a lot more sense to you, but I'm looking at it and just don't see how I can (or should) transfer these patterns. Perhaps the topology is different.
So, to bring this unconnected rambling to an end; I'm in desperate need for tips on what agriculture in central Kojo is likely to look like. The area is rather fertile, especially along the rivers, although I don't think hyper fertile loam would have been carried that far south during a glacial period. The area receives more and steadier rainfall than say a Mediterranean country, but is warmer than central and probably western Europe. However it's not tropical yet. It's not a "new-world" country, and plot sizes and arrangements are rather irregular. Population density during medieval ages would have been comparatively high, leading to an intense degree of land usage, untouched areas basically don't exist. On a last note; I really like that some users (most notably one already mentioned in this diary) come up with "new", original agricultural practices adapted to their nations' climate and culture. However, since Kojo is a continental nation, I don't think it would make sense for an isolated agricultural practice to be invented there (and only there), and then stay there without spreading throughout large parts of Uletha.
Please help xD