Eh... "Garglesnaps" just popped into my head, which means I read it somewhere - it could have a weird meaning, I'd check before using it :p


And... you both sort of got it...

Crops are just plants. Long ago, before there were ever any people (and probably pre-anyotherlife) there were plants.

However people arrived on your planet, the plants were there (and if they were terraforming, then whatever home planet they originally came from had plants too).

Some of those plants were edible - some weren't.

Since people have an annoying habit of taking things they like and messing with them, the people of your world tried to take the edible plants and replicate (as best they could) the growing conditions (right food, covering them in winter, whatever.) If they were successful, they harvested the edible bits and called them crops.

This is true on any world. (except conworlds, but those would still hold true for the planet of origination)

SO.... uninhabited island. Same basic temperatures on the whole island, BUT... is it a bit cooler along the coast than in the jungle? Of course it is. Because of the WIND. So it's cooler. Some of the water (in the air, at least) is salt water, not fresh water.

So the vegetation - the *plants* that grow along the coast will already be different than elsewhere on the island. Including the edible ones your first explorers find. (future crops).


ALSO, as foremost hinted at... people adapt things they like to their own purposes. If I like rice and I don't have the right conditions to grow it naturally, well then, by all the gods of Naos, I will MAKE the right conditions. Even if it means building a basement, or a greenhouse, or...

I'm digressing. The point is, people will take crops from their native climate, and bring them home to a different climate. If conditions are similar (temperature, amount of water, type of soil) then it usually doesn't change much.

But... if conditions are different... even with ONE significant change (like that salt air or cool wind) then you could come up with a different variety of the same plant.

People also (further back than recorded history) have a habit of hybridizing things. (What's a mule? It's mentioned in the earliest stories, lol, there are even documented cases of mules giving birth (BAD OMEN!!) as early as 500 BC.) We do the same with plants, especially crops. That changes them, on a fundamental level, and makes it possible to grow new varieties in new places as well.

Finally, since we aren't talking about modern times...

If you're building a new city, you need a way to make money. A way to *trade* with other cities (villages, towns, forbidding sorcerer's towers, whatever).

If the city of Hockaloogee produces enough grain to feed the entire population, put some aside, and still has grain left over - well, they don't WANT your grain. They don't need it.

So maybe you try to grow enough grain for yourself, but you don't plant more than necessary. But you find these little pink fruits growing on the trees, and they're really sweet. First you make sure they aren't poisoned... then you GROW them. You plant the seeds to grow more and more because people in Hockaloogee will pay a fortune for something new.

Tomatoes grow in Lurgee, but not well. You brought some tomatoes with you and you find it grows well here. You plant tomatoes because people in lurgee will pay for tomatoes.


If you have to *justify* why different plants -- I mean crops -- grow in a different area, you can use anything you want to justify it. Commerce, air conditions, different native vegetation, deliberate hybridization, the difference in temperature from the wind, or even more POTABLE water through rivers and irrigation, vs. Seawater and the occasional freshwater pool

It's not really the sort of thing that needs justification - it's a pretty normal/natural occurence. It just FEELS wrong because in today's society, we've found ways around it.