giant crops

[NottedOkenStaf]

Hi, all. Those crops that will grow into giants if you plant them in 3 x 3 plots: cauliflower, melons, pumpkins. I used to think that was something that just happened sometimes, and there was nothing you could do to encourage it. But I heard a while ago, that all the 3 x 3 plots will grow into giants if you don't harvest them. After their mature do you still have to water them? Does anybody know if fertilizer improves the quality of the crops you get from giants? Thanks for your help.

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Stardew Valley Wiki:

Giant Crops
Cauliflower, Melons, or Pumpkins planted in a 3x3 pattern can randomly combine into a giant crop. Giant crops drop 15–21 items when harvested with any axe, which takes three hits.

At the start of each day, every possible 3x3 grid of crops (including overlaps) has a 1% chance to grow into a giant crop as long as the center crop is fully-grown and watered, and all constituent crops are of the same type. Giant crops won't necessarily appear on the day the crops finish growing; it can happen any day those criteria are met.[1]

Giant crops don't die at change of season like other crops. Just like with Wild Seeds, soil underneath a giant crop may become untilled, causing any fertilizer to be lost. Giant crops cannot grow in the greenhouse or by using Garden Pots.

https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Crops

[NottedOkenStaf]

@Nakos, thanks. I guess I learned that from the wiki though I don't remember it. So they do have to be watered. The language suggests that fertilizer matters by noting that squares may become untilled and hence fertilizer lost, but that seems unclear. The individual crops you get from breaking a giant don't map to the originating squares 1 to 1. You get more crops than there are squares. Does fertilizer apply to all them? To some of them? Or to none of them especially if one square becomes untilled?

[Bobywan]

Not sure it is worth not harvesting and hoping for giant crops except at the end of the month because melon and cauliflowers grow in 12 days pumpkins in 13 so if you plant them on the 1st of the month you can wait the last 4 or 2 days before the second harvest and the end of the month in hope of giant crops

[NottedOkenStaf]

@Bobywan, that's pretty much what I was thinking. If you don't have time left in the season to grow another crop like that, you might wait to see if you get a giant. Except that the earlier in the game you are, the more incentive you have to wait. Those 9 cauliflower seeds you get from the fifth museum donation could be a much, much greater reward than I've habitually been getting from them.

[Stardustfire]

i read somewhere that each new day they have another chance to merge into a big one, but: are you willing to wait several days with harvesting after they are full grown for the benefit of a few more from a merged one? specialy when you take into account that all that comes out of the big ones are ever only basic quality?

[Jigain]

Actually, even taking into account getting gold and silver quality from individual cauliflowers, a giant crop will still earn you significantly more due to sheer number of produce.

For instance, at level 10 Farming, and no fertilizer, there's a 21% chance the crop you harvest is gold quality, a 33% chance it is silver quality, and a 46% chance it's regular quality. Meaning for 9 cauliflower, your sell price should be approximately ( ( 9 x 175 x 0.46) + ( 9 x 218 x 0.33 ) + ( 9 x 262 x 0.21) ) = ( 724.5 + 647.46 + 495.18 ) = 1867.14g, compared to a giant crop's ( 15 x 175 ) = 2625g.

Even if you were to somehow guarantee all nine cauliflowers being gold quality crops, ( 9 x 262 ) = 2358g, or 267g LESS than selling fifteen regular-quality crops.

That said, I would personally never wait for the eventuality. But mechanically speaking, the reasoning behind doing so is sound.