Fertilizer type and use

[Panfilo]

So there are 3 basic types of fertilizer:

Quality modifying fertilizers- These increase the chances to get higher tier crops. This is nice early on to get the community center bundles and make extra coin. Though granted the best fertilizers of this type are also the most time consuming to gather (1 fish+1 coral is not hard to get, but a time sink)

Speed modifying fertilizers- Increase the maturity time of crops. Combined with Agriculturalist you can squeeze an extra harvest out of a few crop types, and it also opens up opportunities to plant late in the season when normally it wouldn't be worth it. For constant cycling crops this probably isn't worth it since the speed bonus only applies to the inital maturity, but for things like Cauliflower and Pumpkins I'm guessing its a better deal.

Water retaining fertilizers- Give you the chance to not need to water the next day. I'm not sure the exact % but it needs to be really high to be worth it. Sprinklers at that point aren't hard to come by, so if you're using this type its because you don't have sprinklers in an area. Since you can't predict accurately what areas don't need to be watered, and upgraded watering cans cover a large area anyway, it seems kind of worthless to have say, every other patch not need to be watered since it won't necessarily save you any time. like I said, this would need to be a really high % to be worth it.

So which do you use? For Trellis crops I use quality fertilizer and for expendable crops I use speed. The water retention type seems the least useful so far.

[rad rat ray]

retaining soil is useless

regular fertilizer's chances of becoming gold star are so low that it's probably better to wait a year and buy quality fertilizer or whatever it's called

if you're turning all crops into wine or jam then the quality won't matter, so end game speed gro is probably the only useful kind

[rad rat ray]

Originally posted by SlackerBoe:

I didn't need much more than 40 sap/season to get the gold's done.

lucky you, I was lucky to even get silver star with basic fertilizer

[Panfilo]

Originally posted by rad rat ray:

retaining soil is useless

regular fertilizer's chances of becoming gold star are so low that it's probably better to wait a year and buy quality fertilizer or whatever it's called

if you're turning all crops into wine or jam then the quality won't matter, so end game speed gro is probably the only useful kind

In the short term, getting 5 star for the necessary crops for the community center early on is useful. And unless you are swimming in wood and other resources being able to hock silver/gold star crops immediately is also very handy for fast cash. 2 sap isn't that much of a cost for a chance of getting more money for a given investment. Not to mention getting a bigger bonus for 'loved' gifts for certain villagers/Luau.

[NotThatHarkness]

The value of using Speed-Gro or Deluxe Speed-Gro really depends on the crop. For something like hops, you'd definitely want to use Deluxe Speed-Gro. Other crops which produce throughout the season would depend on whether you get an additional harvest or not.

The speed-gro (regular or deluxe) can be very useful late game if you are planting a very large amount of crops. The more planting you can put off to day 2 the better. Use a rain totem on day 1 of the season and plant all you can on day 2 when it's (most likely) raining and all you have to do is till the land, put down the speed-gro, and plant the seeds.

I find fertilizer useful early/mid game when I'm looking for immediate profit and don't have the kegs or preserves to process much. Once I start really investing in kegs and preserve barrels then fertilizer isn't very useful.

[jie]

Basic fertiliser early game. Year1/2 after that i get so large where i dont Bother any fertilzer. And even basic fertilizer helps alot early game. Money wise community and gifts

[rad rat ray]

Originally posted by jerjare:

Originally posted by rad rat ray:

retaining soil is useless

regular fertilizer's chances of becoming gold star are so low that it's probably better to wait a year and buy quality fertilizer or whatever it's called

if you're turning all crops into wine or jam then the quality won't matter, so end game speed gro is probably the only useful kind

In the short term, getting 5 star for the necessary crops for the community center early on is useful. And unless you are swimming in wood and other resources being able to hock silver/gold star crops immediately is also very handy for fast cash. 2 sap isn't that much of a cost for a chance of getting more money for a given investment. Not to mention getting a bigger bonus for 'loved' gifts for certain villagers/Luau.

I said end game

Damn. The wiki puts it at 1/3 percent odds for each level. Maybe RNG being RNG? But I do agree with your breakdown of fertilizer, it has very few potential uses besides end game speed grow and even then I never really use it after I finished the AF planting. As your farming skill goes up and star potential rises naturally it all seems like it gets phased out.

yeah, you mentioned 40 sap, so that's only 20 fertilizer right? and you got 5 gold quality crops out of that? I rarely even get 5 gold quality crops using quality fertilizer on 20 crops. often times I'll have to plant 10 more, and then 10 more, etc.

[SapienChavez]

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

The speed-gro (regular or deluxe) can be very useful late game if you are planting a very large amount of crops. The more planting you can put off to day 2 the better. Use a rain totem on day 1 of the season and plant all you can on day 2 when it's (most likely) raining and all you have to do is till the land, put down the speed-gro, and plant the seeds.

This is good advice.

Curious though, if youre going this route, why not plant on day-1 anyway? Either way, you lose one day on watering, but if you planted on Day 1 it seems like less work for any single day. (I get it all done on day-1, myself... its a busy day every month. especially if i forgot to buy all my seeds at the end of the month on the previous year.)

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by SapienChavez:

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

The speed-gro (regular or deluxe) can be very useful late game if you are planting a very large amount of crops. The more planting you can put off to day 2 the better. Use a rain totem on day 1 of the season and plant all you can on day 2 when it's (most likely) raining and all you have to do is till the land, put down the speed-gro, and plant the seeds.

This is good advice.

Curious though, if youre going this route, why not plant on day-1 anyway? Either way, you lose one day on watering, but if you planted on Day 1 it seems like less work for any single day. (I get it all done on day-1, myself... its a busy day every month. especially if i forgot to buy all my seeds at the end of the month on the previous year.)

In my current game I can't plant everything on day 1 anyways. I simply can't clear the land, till, fertilize, run over to Pierre's, and plant and water 824 plants in one day. I use some spreadsheets I found on the web and plan out what I'm going to plant and what I'm going to use Deluxe Speed-Gro on, so I know ahead of time exactly what I need to do.

I find it much less stressful to plant only what absolutely has to go down on day 1. Since a good portion of the crops don't need to be planted on day 1 to get all possible harvests I take advantage of that to spread out the work. I also use a rain totem just to make things a little easier on day 2. The crops I plant on day 1 need to be watered when planted or I'll lose a harvest. For example, hops, pumpkins/cauliflower/melons/rhubarb with DSG.