Best crops?

[Pyrimidal]

What are the best crops to use in the first week or so of Spring? I spent my 500 on 25 parsnips, so I'm about to harvest the 40 I have. Is there a better crop to use after this? I was thinking about potatoes, but they're pretty expensive.

[Pixel Peeper]

Parsnips and Beans are apparently the best options, though Beans require you to plant early to get their best value.

It doesn't really matter unless you're really determined to max out your gold income, which isn't necessarily the best approach.

Depending on what you want to do, you might want to diversify. Mostly this lets you complete bundles earlier, though there are a few other potential benefits... people requesting specific stuff, shipping every item for an extra grandpa point, that sort of thing.

[NotThatHarkness]

Depends on what you want to do. In my first two games I went with some green beans very early and then concentrated on cauliflower on the assumption that the most expensive seed produced the most valuable harvest. I also did a little bit of everything primarily for the CC bundle.

However, someone on this forum pointed out that parsnips, for the money, are great for increasing farming skill. So in my 3rd game I concentrated on parsnips. I still grew other things for the Spring Crops CC bundle, but concentrated mostly on growing as much parsnips as I could manage. I made less money that spring than in my previous games, but my farming skill was much higher. I'm not sure that's a huge advantage. I wasn't in a position to craft much of the new stuff unlocked by higher farming skill, but the improved efficiency with the hoe and watering can was nice.

[Pyrimidal]

So say I'm aiming for profit. I should go with potatoes? I decided to screw off the other save and go with the one that's day 10.

[Pixel Peeper]

The wiki lists every crop's "gold per day" value.

http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Crops

Of course, it doesn't include other factors such as raising your farming skill more quickly or reinvestment from more immediate profits from faster crops.

[Pyrimidal]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by Silverstrike l ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.com:

So say I'm aiming for profit. I should go with potatoes? I decided to screw off the other save and go with the one that's day 10.

Potatoes are good for FARMING XP which is what you should be going for in Spring.

Profit wise everything is pretty junk except maybe strawberries which you get for 100 a seed at the egg festival and you get two harvests of.

if by that time you can throw down 100 strawberry seeds covered with 100 basic fertilizer it will cost you like 10000 and get you around 33000 plus enough farming XP to get you to farming 6. which is quality sprinklers.

The other stuff in spring is...not super great. I measure things in number of waterings to get me to farming 6. Potatoes are better than parsnips. parsnips aren't even worth selling. I gifted them to pam after finishing the community center that wanted them

Thanks for the advice. I just started a new game (again cuz I'm f**kin retarded) and bought 10 patatoez. Next harvest I'll buy even more. But now... there's one they (the fish) fear... in their tounge, his name is *gurgle gurgle gurgle*... Fishborn... FUS RO ♥♥♥♥ YOU CATFISH

[CloudSeeker]

Strawberry is by far the best spring crop. No comparison, well some are better but Strawberries are quite easy to get. The best Seed is general is the following: Sweet Gem Berry (if you can get enough for them that is), Ancient Fruit, Cranberries, Starfruit, Blueberry, Strawberry, Coffee Bean

Parsnip is actually quite bad in comparison to potatos or Cauliflower.

[Storm]

Originally posted by CloudSeeker:

Strawberry is by far the best spring crop. No comparison, well some are better but Strawberries are quite easy to get. The best Seed is general is the following: Sweet Gem Berry (if you can get enough for them that is), Ancient Fruit, Cranberries, Starfruit, Blueberry, Strawberry, Coffee Bean

Parsnip is actually quite bad in comparison to potatos or Cauliflower.

In response to this, and to the others saying parsnips are not good; really? You fail to take into account that parsnips are also the quickest growing crop in spring, and when your limiter is money, not space/energy, that's an important thing. They might not be as directly good, but they are the best crop for at least the first couple weeks of spring for the simple fact that you get your turnover quicker. Earlier profit means you get new seeds earlier, and thus expand earlier. This, of course, is going off of what is best for quickly expanding, rather than optimal value.

[CloudSeeker]

Originally posted by Storm77777:

Originally posted by CloudSeeker:

Strawberry is by far the best spring crop. No comparison, well some are better but Strawberries are quite easy to get. The best Seed is general is the following: Sweet Gem Berry (if you can get enough for them that is), Ancient Fruit, Cranberries, Starfruit, Blueberry, Strawberry, Coffee Bean

Parsnip is actually quite bad in comparison to potatos or Cauliflower.

In response to this, and to the others saying parsnips are not good; really? You fail to take into account that parsnips are also the quickest growing crop in spring, and when your limiter is money, not space/energy, that's an important thing. They might not be as directly good, but they are the best crop for at least the first couple weeks of spring for the simple fact that you get your turnover quicker. Earlier profit means you get new seeds earlier, and thus expand earlier. This, of course, is going off of what is best for quickly expanding, rather than optimal value.

The problem isn't really money, it is time to do stuff. You spend so much time just watering the crops you fail to focus on other stuff. Instead of spending your day watering Parsnips you can just get enough money to buy some potatoes and go to the mines and get copper to upgrade your tools with. In order to make money efficently you need quality sprinklers. When I focus on making Parsnips I am always worse of in money then I am doing anything else. Also those X/d statistics are not for show you know. If you have something that make 3,75g / d over something that makes 5-7,67 g / day you will always make less money / day regardless of what you are doing.

If you have problems with money you do not gain anything on wasting your time with planting Parsnips for a 2 day faster reward when 2,5-3,8 gold / d / crop that isn't a potato. That is pretty much the whole profit margin of a Parsnip

[Doctor Teo]

It's never quite so straightforwards.

It's true, more expensive crops yield more money, but there's a bunch of catches.

-A smaller crop with a shorter growth time gives you money earlier, letting you buy new sets of seeds quicker.
-A crop that keeps producing once it has grown tends to yield a lot in the long run, but is worth a little less immediately, which means less new seeds purchased on the first harvest.
-An expensive, long growing crop yields a big payday, and is typically more profitable. Not only that, but you need less fertilizer for a few big plants than a lot of small ones. However, your money's locked up until they grow in, and you can't grow them if their growth time goes beyond the season's end.

Edit: There's also the consideration of jelly/pickles/alcohol. This isn't relevant yet since you're just starting, but there are a number of crops which are more profitable than others to turn into processed products. Fruit put in a keg for instance gains 3x its value, but it takes a full seven days for it to turn into wine. At the other extreme, coffee only earns double value from being put in a keg, but turns into a finished product in mere minutes, and you can easily make three or four batches of it in a single day (and the stuff grows like weeds!).

[Pyrimidal]

e.e I was not expecting this to go into a full blown argument

Anyways, atm I have 20 parsnips, 18 potatoes, 3 beans, and 1 cauliflour (for spring bundle).

[Nakos]

It's a subject that gets debated quite a bit. Some people look only at the gold-per-day value of individual plant compared to individual plant and tend to overlook the other factors.

Parsnips, humble though they be, are excellent for generating cash growth quickly, and also for giving Farming skill experience quickly. The Potato is also good.

Plant for plant things like Beans and Strawberries produce more value, but have higher initial investements, longer growth cycles and in general, take much longer to pay off. So ... it's a question of what you're doing and what you want.

The other consideration is how many plants can you tend. You can buy 3 Parsnips for the cost of one Bean, but that's three plants to water instead of one.

If you're already well established, then growing big fields of Beans is a good idea. If you're trying to get established, and don't have a lot of cash to draw on yet, then short turnaround crops like the Parsnip and the Potato are really good.

Strawberries are an especially problematic crop as they're only sold at the Egg festival. This means that if you buy them at the Egg Festival, and plant them right away, you can get about two harvests out of them. If, on the other hand you buy them in year one, and wait until Spring year two to plant, you can get 5 harvests out of them. So ... Strawberries are very valuable, but require a VERY long planning horizon in order to maximize their value.

Also, in Spring, if you plant and replant Parsnips (and use Fertilizer if you can make it out of Sap) then you've got a very good chance to get the 5 Gold star Parsnips you need for the Quality Crops bundle.



When Summer comes, Blueberries are an excellent crop. So are Hops (in fact Hops are an excellent source of energy, and later, when you have Kegs, can be converted into Pale Ale).


If you plant about 45ish Mellons, with Fertilizer, you should be able to get enough gold star Mellons to do the quality crops bundle with those too. The same goes for Corn, although you probably don't need the Fertilizer, since Corn grows for two seasons.



Save at least some of everything. Plan ahead for Kegs and Jars, and save some of your crops to process through those too.

http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Crops

[Nakos]

Originally posted by red255:

In spring, your general goal is to get farming XP more than money.

if you want money in spring, fishing or mining is generally your goal, if you are spending your time watering crops you wouldn't have the energy to do other tasks.

I disagree. Most of the people who are likely to be asking this basic a question are people doing their first playthrough who are in their first Spring of the first year. They are indeed trying to figure out how to generate more gold, and how to do it quickly.

The short turnaround crops give you your seed gold and your profit back quickly, allowing rapid reinvestment and progressive growth (of your cash).

Yes, I agree that Farming skill is important, but so is initial gold growth.

While many people love fishing (and the fishing UI), please bear in mind that many people also hate it, and avoid fishing as much as possible. Mining is useful for many things, and I personally mine aggressively during Spring year one, but I don't make much money at it, most of the materials I gather mining get put back into equipment to help me grow more crops.

Ultimately, for my personal needs, it's Farming that generates the most money.

[jame]

Most profitable option:

1 In spring after planting your parsinips, get community center bundle crops to complete the spring crops bundle. After that you should be gaining money from fishing and foraging and you should be around couple thousand bucks by the egg finding event. At that point use ALL of your money to buy strawberries and plant them, they level up your farming skills quickly so your crops would be worth more.

2 In summer you should have sprinklers all ready and plant blueberries, they are the most profitable in summer.

3 fall is cranberries, you should have expanded your farming fields and harvest in big amounts

4 nothing in winter, mine, fish, upgrade tools, have fun

[Pyrimidal]

I only fish on rainy days, but when I do, I usually make 1K+. On sunny days, I just run around foraging/mining after watering my crops. Is that a good idea, or am I just wasting my time?

[Pyrimidal]

Originally posted by ComplexJelly:

Most profitable option:

1 In spring after planting your parsinips, get community center bundle crops to complete the spring crops bundle. After that you should be gaining money from fishing and foraging and you should be around couple thousand bucks by the egg finding event. At that point use ALL of your money to buy strawberries and plant them, they level up your farming skills quickly so your crops would be worth more.

2 In summer you should have sprinklers all ready and plant blueberries, they are the most profitable in summer.

3 fall is cranberries, you should have expanded your farming fields and harvest in big amounts

4 nothing in winter, mine, fish, upgrade tools, have fun

Wouldn't saving the strawberries until next spring be more profitable?