I have a world (for a short story) where the entire colony sort of goes into coma for a momth during each summer, and thus cannot tend their crops.

Being the city girl that I am, I know little to nothing about farming. But, for a town of 300 people or so, could you just set up your fields with timed sprinklers to maintain your crops for a month? Would weeds become a problem? What other challenges could occur? Could one get enough rain in the summer not to worry about irrigation?

Other notes: this is a colony of humans on another planet, so there would be no pests to worry of (lucky colonists). It's a society that has chemical knowledge and limited mechanical abilities. They also highly depend on hunting and gathering, and due to their summer, um, hibernation, would not plant high-maintenance crops.

Herbivores? That's a bigger problem. Especially since the colonists brought deer.

Weeds, I'm thinking some sort of advanced herbicide. Yay science fiction!

From then till harvest I think you can snooze if you like...

I am not sure how you plan to have a world with agriculture without "pests" ... there has to be some substitute for the role insects play: pollinating, burrowing in the soil to eat debris, loosen the ground, adding nitrogen.... Insects are a critical element in the food chain. Without them, I doubt plants and animals could exist. As a reader of science-fiction, I would have a hard time believing your world's premise without a believable explanation for how biological diversity could exist without insects.

I speak from the perspective of someone living in a rural area with lots of deer, and who grew up on a small farm.

Regarding water, some regions receive the most precipitation in summer. Perhaps the farmland grows beside a river (or between rivers) that usually maintains a constant water level, and the people use an irrigation system maintained by sensors so the crops aren't over-watered (which can be as damaging as drought).

You'll need something living in the soil for the reasons Elan mentioned. It doesn't have to be insects. Worms, fungi, and other plants can fulfill many of insects' roles in a simple ecosystem. Insects are a critical element in Earth's food chains, but life can survive without them.

I'm hoping a POV character in your story thinks like an outsider. Many readers will wonder why your world is so strange, and a character who marvels at the colony's practices can answer readers' questions.

If they have automated irrigation and the crops are well-started, they won't die. Already there are hybrid food crops unaffected by general herbicides ("Roundup-ready"). If necessary herbicides could be applied on an automated schedule (at most they'd be required once in the middle of the month, assuming you don't have especially voracious weeds in your world and the weedkillers were applied right before the hybernation. Pesticides likewise could be applied automatically.

I'm assuming that since your inhabitants are able to automate irrigation, that they aren't out there with hoes and tending the food crops by hand. If they are case, then the fields will be a bit of a mess after a month due to weeds, but that can be fixed by hoeing. If they're working by hand there's not much they can do about insect pests anyway. Most large herbivores can be kept out with fencing, but usually they don't cause too much trouble (not many farms bother to fence in their fields).

I don't think your idea is too big of a stretch unless there un-earthlike situations specific to your world. Though it's hard to picture a world were humans can hunt and gather and consume the native vegetation and creatures, yet none of the native creatures would find the human crops edible. That's why I talked a little about "pests" anyway. Someone mentioned pollination too. Very important for some crops to have insect pollinators--something native or imported (colonists brought there own bees, maybe).

The weed problem would be similar for fruit orchards. All other crops (besides corn) that I can think of would require some kind of pollinator. Some species of birds, and even bats, act as pollinators, too. So it doesn't have to be insects, but nothing is as efficient as bees.

And most other crops would be more damaged by weeds, because they're not as tall as corn.

My narrator is a teenager in the colony who 'wakes up' during this time. My best idea at the moment is to have her go by the fenced orchards and croplands and note the automated systems, the insect damage, the areas of weeds where the herbicides have failed, perhaps a section where the irrigation has broken and the crops have died.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts!

(About me: I'm a wildlife biolgist who spends too much time thinking about the troubles of invasive species, but who knows too little about crop production.)

Unless you world has very, very little rainfall, it is unlikely that most crops would die with only natural rainfall over the course of a few weeks. Millions of acres in the middle section of the US are farmed without any irrigation, and droughts are a fairly regular occurrence there. Crops would be stunted and show signs of stress after a prolonged drought (say a month or so of very little rain), possibly hurting yields, but not much more than that. It could be different for some types of vegetables (tomatoes and melons come to mind) that have higher water needs than "breadbasket" crops like corn, wheat, soybeans, and the like.

Weed barriers, permeable roll sheeting, natural or chemical herbicides, or mulch.

Water, natural rainfall and water table dryland irrigation or intensive artificial irrigation.

Pests, overabundant planting provision for animal and insect gleaning or providing for ample production through mechanical, chemical, or practical barriers.

I've been a truck gardener off and on and here and there. At one place and time, my duplex housemates and I once plowed and planted a half acre vegetable garden in one day. Five robust young bachelors and a married couple chased the rototiller mule around the field breaking ground, turning in manure mucked out of the landlord's cattle stalls, and turning in a couple hundred pounds of slaked lime. We planted and left it alone except for enjoying the cornucopia of sweet, fat vegetables and melons that grew out unattended. No weeding, no watering, just planting and picking and eating. I expect chemicals the landlord used in the cattle pastures transferred to our garden. No ill effects presented.

Oh, and birds kept the insects under control. A couple feral-minded cats kept the birds and small rodents under control. A free-ranging brute of dog took care of the rest.

As far as water and light and nutrients, the stuff plants need to survive, I would assume any civilization with enough technology to get to another planet could also work out some automated care system. I have a sprinkler system that works like that: I set it, and then it waters my lawn all summer without any extra effort. If I fell asleep for a month, it would need mowing, but wouldn't be dead.

What is the point of having everyone asleep? Is it something intrinsic to the world, like some disease that affects humans that way? How come this MC awakes in the middle? I ask because how the farm would react depends on what your story is about. Do you want these crops devastated and she is the only one aware? The important part is not how farms would react without care for a month, but what you want to have happen.

Do you want everything to be fine? Technology waters and cares for the plants, native flora and fauna can't compete or can't eat the crops, and the transplanted deer have a big fence. OR, it seems to me like you want the crops devastated. If that is the case, you could simply conjure up what you want to happen. The insects could have evolved so that now they can digest the plants, and now they've consumed the entire crop. Perhaps the automated mechanism for watering them broke and they all died of dehydration. Maybe the fence broke and the deer got in and had a salad. Maybe everything worked fine and an asteroid hit.

My point is that there is an infinite amount of things that COULD happen to a farm if the settlers took a month long siesta, so what needs to happen for your story to progress can have multiple routes.

Personally I'd say that the chances are higher that the earth plants wouldn't have defenses against the alien insects. As long as the biology is close enough. Sure you have specialized insects like the bark beetles and the corn borers, but you also have equal opportunity pests like locusts and cockroaches who could devour pretty much any form of life. But, of course, it's your world, as long as it sounds good it works.

I agree fungus is huge, it's eating my yard up the wazoo. I think warmer climates just have different fungi, there's no escape.

I like importing cats to other planets...most of my space stories have cats in them, so that's a good idea for the little pests. Cats can live solo for a month, frankly they'd probably prefer it if we all beat it for a month here and there so they can finally get some peace and quiet. A dog could manage with a dry food supply I would think (give him a shed?)

In observing the fields that grow near me (they are pretty much all soybean/corn fields - they alternate each year) there is little to no irrigation, even though our summer rainfall can be irregular but we're not in drought conditions, and there is little "tending of the fields" on these big plots that are all the same crop (several acres of corn/soybeans.) The ground gets tilled and worked in the spring, then you basically don't see the farm equipment again until fall when it's harvest time. I'm sure the farmers (corporations? It can't be a small-time farmer I don't think) are busy doing things, but it's on a small scale compared to planting and harvesting. I don't think it'd be a problem to have a story protag notice a month's idle time in fields so long as you give at least lip service to the considerations others mention above.

If they have been there for a very long time (hundreds of years), then that would be a different story. However, pests might be more of a problem because of cross pollination if plant species are compatable.

I suppose I should have stated early on that this is a full and completed story. An editor who rejected the piece asked me how they'd grow food if they were asleep for a month out of the year. There are other reasons why the month comes in the middle of the summer. I can explain if anyone would like me to, but it's not particularly relevant to the discussion of food.

And thus, as to what Teraen asked: it actually is all about how the farm would react in a month. And it's the opposite - it's very important the crops NOT be devestated. Oh, and humans are the invasive species, but it's only partially relevant to the story.

In this particular universe, they chose to come to this planet after it was surveyed for compatibility, crops grown as such to interact with the particular soil microbes, and have treated the soil over the past three hundred years to their specifications. So, like rstegman said, it's a case of genetic modification against insects.

This reminds me why I usually write fantasy. Thus I have the excuse: "Because the gods made it that way!!!!!"