I'm still new to the game but getting the hang of it already, I wish my farmers just auto plant any farms that I made and wish that my selected seed won't deselect itself after a whole year, that way I can concentrate on digging more rooms for my dwarfs to use as well. I'm pretty new to machines and wish that the developers make something to allow us to use pipes so that I don't have to use a lot of channels and bridges.
Your fields stop being planted after a year? I've never had that problem. I have 3 5x5 fields in full use and I haven't touched them in at least 2 years ingame, more like 2.5...