New Farm? Just starting out in Spring Year 1? Why I think parsnips should be your main focus.

[ceynomore]

So, let my just start by saying I haven't looked at *every* guide about what the most profitable seeds are, but I saw a lot suggesting that cauliflower, or green beans, etc, were the way to go in spring given their high profit turnaround (of buying price versus sale price, cauliflower buy at 80, sell for 175, and net 95g in profit per seed packet for unstarred). But I started to realize that parsnips were actually the way to go to get the most money, most quickly.

Not only that, but parsnips double as a quick and easy way to begin racking up friendship stars with most villagers, so parsnips serve a double purpose to really start making some huge progress within your first spring.

Villagers who LIKE Parsnips: Alex (candidate), Caroline, Clint, Demetrius, Dwarf, Elliot (candidate), Emily (candidate), Evelyn, George, Gus, Harvey (candidate), Jodi, Kent, Krobus, Leah (candidate), Lewis, Linus, Marnie, Maru (candidate), Penny (candidate), Pierre, Robin, Sandy, Sebastian (candidate), Shane (candidate), Willy, Wizard

So that means, NINE out of 12 candidates who like parsnips and can be gifted them twice each week to start racking up those friendship points.

For the other three candidates, Abigail, Haley, Sam, you can use Tulips. For easy to find forage items, Abigail also likes quartz which is easily found just lying around the mine after Spring 5. Haley likes Daffodils which can be found most days just lying around, and Sam like Joja Colas (found in the trash or by fishing sometimes, but you can also buy them if you really feel like it or need one in a pinch).

So with parsnips, and a few quartz, daffodils, and colas, OR just straight up tulips, you can have all the marriage candidates easily covered with presents all spring, not to mention all the rest of the townspeople. (Any of the townspeople who don't like Parsnips, like Tulips, and many like both.)

Okay, so that tangent aside, back to profiting and what the best crops are.

On Spring 1, you're given 500G to start with. What's going to get you the most profit with just that 500G to spend? Let's assume all crops you get at harvest are unstarred, and we want to maximize our spending money and profits as efficiently as possible.

Parsnips = you can buy 25 packs at 20g with 500g, and in 4 days those 25 parsnips can be harvested, for 35g apiece, for a total of 875g. A 375g profit.

Cauliflower = you can buy only 6 packs at 80g on your first day with 500g, and in 12 days you can sell those 6 cauliflower at 175g apiece, for a total of 1,050g. A 570g profit.

Now, if you just look at the straight profits from seed purchase versus sale price, cauliflowers clearly seem like the best choice. Obviously, a 570g profit is more than a 375g profit.

.... but now let's factor in harvest times.

Parsnips, while having a lower profit from seed price, can be harvest and replanted three times within the time one cauliflower can be harvested.

So let's say we keep spending 500g every time we harvest, to re-buy new seeds, etc, and how much time we're given in the month: 28 days.

Alright, so it's Day 1, and we're going with the cauliflower option. We buy 6 packs of cauliflowers. In 12 days, on Day 13, we're ready to harvest. We have to ship them before we can buy more, so on Day 14, we go to Pierre's with 1,050g and spend another 500g on 6 cauliflower seeds, while keeping the other 550g for spending money. We wait another 12 days for the harvest, and it is now Day 26. On Day 27 we wake up with another 1,050g, another profit of 570g. It's now too late to plant more cauliflower, so let's see how we did. We started with 500g, got 1,050g back, kept 550g and spent another 500g, got 1,050g back again. All in all ending with 1,600g in our pockets, assuming the 550g we held back didn't get spent already.

Scenario 2 for cauliflower, spending ALL your profit on seeds: On day 14, if you spend your whole 1,050 profit on cauliflower seeds, you'll get 13 packs. And then in another 13 days (12 to grow plus 1 to wake up to the money from shipping), you'll get 2,275g after shipping by the end of the month.

Not a bad profit margin at all, but... all that time waiting for the cauliflower to grow, you know? Let's look at parsnips.

So for example one we're going to keep respending 500g to purchase seeds, while saving some of our profit.

So on Day 1, we buy 25 packs of parsnips for 500g, and harvest on Day 5, getting 875g back on Day 6. Day 6, buy 25 more packs for 500g, saving aside 375g profit. On Day 10, harvest again, receive another 875g on Day 11, we're now at 1,250g. Spend another 500g on 25 packs, saving aside 750g now, and harvest again on Day 15. On Day 16 wake up to another 875g, putting us at 1,625g total in our pockets now. Buy 25 more packs for 500g, saving aside the 1,125g. On Day 21, harvest and ship. Day 22, wake up to another 875g, which now leaves us with 2,000g in our pockets. And we still have time to plant and harvest more! So, buy another 25 packets at 500g, setting aside 1,500g, plant them, and on Day 27 we harvest and ship, and wake up to another 875g. Now leaving us with a total of 2,375g in our pockets.

Whereas, when we were buying cauliflower in sets of 500g, we ended the month at only 1,600g.

But wait, what if we spent all our profits each time, and maxed out how many seeds we were buying, for *ultimate* profit? So on Day 6, instead of spending only 500g, we spend the whole 875g we just got on parsnips. That's *43* packets of parsnips, now, that we can sew and eventually harvest. So then, on Day 10, when we harvest and ship, we wake up on Day 11 with 1,505 in profit. If we turn around and spend all *that* on parsnips, that's now *75* packets you can buy, leaving us with 2,625g in our pockets on Day 16. Spend all *that*, on parsnips, and you can buy 131 packs, meaning that on Day 22, we wake up to 4,585g in our pockets. And if you stick to your guns and keep going, you can now buy a last round of 229 parsnip seeds, and on Day 28, after your last shipment, you will wake up to 8,015g.

That's more than three times the amount you would get with cauliflower, because of cauliflower's longer harvest time.

Now, of course, cultivating that many parsnips means a LOT of watering, so it's up to you to decide just how much parsnip you want to keep rebuying, but in terms of how fast they grow, they will be netting you profit every five days, meaning you have money in your pockets sooner, and more often.

And of course, I would suggest using some of your profits to plant some of the other crops, since you need those for different quests, the community center, and etc.

I also didn't factor in setting aside parsnips for gifting purposes, but even with me giving out a ♥♥♥♥ ton of parsnips I'm still rolling in profits. Between fishing, and parsnip farming, I've already made 23k by Spring 20. And you can end up harvesting MORE than enough parsnips to both sell and gift villagers to. Not only that, I've gotten most villagers to 3-4 hearts already with this whole parsnip tactic and I'm not even to the Flower Dance yet.

What do you guys think? Is this something guide-worthy (I'm willing to put one up), or is this something covered before, etc, and I haven't seen it?

I just definitely want to share what I've learned as far as profit-making since I started the game a few weeks ago.

[hyperion]

Spring crops are not going to make you as much as summer and fall crops. At least that's my experience. Parsnips are good for Spring, but so are beans, garlic, tulips, and those blue things. I spend spring mostly trying to upgrade my farm. Summer and fall, I make a lot on crops, especially corn, tomatoes, and peppers.

[Misao]

From my experience on Harvest Moon games, this was more or less the route I decided to follow when I started playing this. I also planted other crops but most of my money came from Parsnips.

Summer is a different story since you now have more money to invest in seeds, and you also get more money from those crops since most of them continue to produce after harvest.

So yeah I agree with this. If you want to make good money fast on the very first season of the game, Parsnip is the way to go. (But it's always good to plant some of the other crops too).

[carl8000]

Focusing on parsnips will get your farming skill up faster too (because of the quick turnaround time). Getting to Lvl 9 by Summer time is easily done, don't know if you can get it all the way up to 10 but probably.

[ceynomore]

I just started Spring 21 (Year 1), and my farming skill is now at level 6. I've been farming about 80% parsnips; I did about 18 of each of the other crops so as to have those crops on hand for quests, community center, etc. Then I've been growing a lot of tulips / blue jazz inbetween for gifts. I feel like I'll probably hit level 8 by the time Spring 28 hits, but not level 9. Still, doing good, if you ask me!