How do seeds + fertilizer interact? (quality)

[ApathicAlpaca]

So I have some quests asking for bronze or silver foodstuff, like pumpkin or wine.

I don't really understand how you ensure good quality outcome.

I want to know what quality a) the produce and b) the harvested seeds have, based on what seeds and fertilizer quality you used.
Is there a clear rule for that? Like, bronze seeds + bronze fertilizer = guaranteed bronze produce AND bronze seeds?
And if you deviate the quality (like, silver seeds but gold fertilizer) then you have a certain probability of getting either silver or gold out of it?

Wiki not really helpful here.
Thanks.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

linky

In short, regarding complex crops (Onions, Grapes, etc.), you're guaranteed one upgraded seed and produce when using Q1 (silver quality) fertilizer, and two upgraded seeds and produce when using Q2 (gold quality) fertilizer. By 'upgraded', I mean if you planted bronze-quality then you'll get some silver-quality, and if you planted silver-quality then you'll get some gold-quality. Otherwise, it's just a range of potential returns regarding basic crop's produce/seeds and complex crop's produce/seeds, based on the type of quality fertilizer used.

[Andramal]

for non-quality produce, all fertilizer will do is boost the seed and produce yield (but generally it's a waste of fertilizer except peat).

For Quality crops (the ones with stars as Evil mentioned) All peat in theory does is help it grow a little faster and slightly boosts the seed/crop yield. The silver and gold fertilizer, however, will give you an extra seed/crop and also give you 1-2 extra of the higher seed and crop accordingly. gold fertilizer is a lot more expensive to make unless you use souls to make it (it's a good shortcut if you need a purpose for it), so unless you're in a major rush to boost up your crops, it's usually not a bad idea to focus on the silver fertilizer and make yourself a range of copper to gold crop and seeds (likewise, you only have to buy extra copper seeds to refill the base versus buying fancier seeds, it'll just depend on patience).

As a side note, if you end up using automated farms, you can upgrade those with the silver and gold fertilizers. The main advantage is that you only have to upgrade them once, so the fertilizer works forever at that point, BUT you are also technically not getting as much in crops and seeds, but it is automated at this point. Even if you don't use it for quality crops it boosts non-quality too, so I'd recommend if you go that route.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Right, thanks.

But to be very clear (and I talk here about quality crops). If I use bronze seeds I will get bronze seeds + produce out of it NO MATTER WHAT? Even if I use no fertilizer at all?
So the reason to USE fertilizer is:
Peat: grow faster, grow slightly more (but still bronze)
Tier I: grow faster, grow more and get 1 silver seed + produce extra
Tier II: grow faster, grow more and get 2 silver seed + produce extra

(accordingly for silver input --> gold extra)

So quality of output is only dependant on seeds but the EXTRA quality depends on fertilizer.
Yes?

THanks.

[T-Bone Biggins]

Always use silver quality fertilizer. It's cheap and gives you seed yields guaranteed high enough to give you a re-planting and spare seeds.

If you use seeds with a star quality (bronze, silver, or gold) with a silver fertilizer it increases the quality of the crop and increases (I think) the number and quality of the seeds. Usually you will actually get back like 3 bronze and 1 silver, not allowing you to re-plant the crop. Buy some more seeds until you get a bunch of silvers and can plant silver quality crops.

Then the same thing happens, you will get likely one gold then a few silver seeds. At this point you might need to re-plant bronze crops a few times to get more silver seeds. Keep doing this process until gold quality then plant only gold from that point on.

Do note you need silver quality wine in one part of the game. So do not throw away your old seeds. Keep them in a chest somewhere. You can look up in the wiki if you need certain qualities of items for certain quest lines.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Yeah I just did that quest, bought the wine in the inn... expensive stuff but my wineyard was only just starting up.

Next question: how does zombie garden work? I put in seeds, they produce... produce. So I lose the seeds completely? Or do they generate also seeds as usual?
Say I put in 24 seeds, do I get out 24 seeds? Or less?

[T-Bone Biggins]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Yeah I just did that quest, bought the wine in the inn... expensive stuff but my wineyard was only just starting up.

Next question: how does zombie garden work? I put in seeds, they produce... produce. So I lose the seeds completely? Or do they generate also seeds as usual?
Say I put in 24 seeds, do I get out 24 seeds? Or less?

I think excess seeds are put in the chest for that work area. It should average out to 24 seeds in and 24 seeds out, sometimes it's one less or one more. So keep an area for yourself to garden stuff in case you need to manually grow stuff and make more seeds again.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Yup, currently I'm still in the faith-restricted part where you need most of it for new zombies. So far I get 13 per week, i. e. 1 zombie + 3 spare faith / week.
I'm also constantly out of money. Just paid a whooping 50s for trade license, broke again. Next gotta pay the smith 50s to advance donkey quest. Broke again. Next gotta pay 30s for house license to the innkeeper. Broke again.
Then again I am focusing on quests instead of MAKING $$$ so I guess I have to spend some weeks getting in serious money, maybe.

[son-goku]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Yeah I just did that quest, bought the wine in the inn... expensive stuff but my wineyard was only just starting up.

Next question: how does zombie garden work? I put in seeds, they produce... produce. So I lose the seeds completely? Or do they generate also seeds as usual?
Say I put in 24 seeds, do I get out 24 seeds? Or less?

Having started zombie farming recently, I think you don't lose any seeds when using it. You use 24 and you get back 24 of the same quality you used.

As for using Peat, with that you run the risk of not getting all the seeds back for the next crop. Before I do zombie farming, I usually have at least 3 fields with gold star fertilizer and the other 9 with peat. Once my seed number starts rising, I exchange one fertilizer field with peat. When I have lots of seeds (which I currently do, 124 gold seeds for pumpkins, onions and lentils), I do only peat until the seeds number has gone down.

Edit: Just checked. Since the produce of the zombie farms always goes into the last trunk, I saw that I even got three seeds back. The farm is gold quality.

[jimmyzgreek]

Originally posted by son-goku:

Having started zombie farming recently, I think you don't lose any seeds when using it. You use 24 and you get back 24 of the same quality you used.

There is some rng with regards to seed amounts, occasionally an automated farm will stop producing due to lack of seeds or a chest will fill up with seeds that wasnt full before

[son-goku]

Originally posted by jimmyzgreek:

Originally posted by son-goku:

Having started zombie farming recently, I think you don't lose any seeds when using it. You use 24 and you get back 24 of the same quality you used.

There is some rng with regards to seed amounts, occasionally an automated farm will stop producing due to lack of seeds or a chest will fill up with seeds that wasnt full before

Well, so far, I haven't lost any, but with my strategy, I shouldn't run out at any time :)

[ApathicAlpaca]

Is there any reason to use quality booster on gold seeds? Or should I chose quantity booster for those? It's a slow process but I am eventually getting there. Had may first batch of 20 gold red wine yesterday *proud drunk noises*

PS: Also it seems like 2 fertilizers can be used at the same time? Like peat + quality boost?

[T-Bone Biggins]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Is there any reason to use quality booster on gold seeds? Or should I chose quantity booster for those? It's a slow process but I am eventually getting there. Had may first batch of 20 gold red wine yesterday *proud drunk noises*

PS: Also it seems like 2 fertilizers can be used at the same time? Like peat + quality boost?

I mostly just use the silver quality fertilizer because it costs maggots being ground up and peat. It's fully self-sustaining with excess, your crops will give you more maggots and peat than you use. You just have to put in the energy to make it in large batches. And the silver-star fertilizer is enough to guarantee you are getting 5 seeds back. This means a lot with gold-star crops, guaranteed 5 gold-star seeds back because you can't randomly get a higher quality at that point.

This game is like that in several mechanics. Very steep learning curve and then it becomes too easy once you have everything in place. Once you can make the silver quality fertilizer gardening goes from a hobby you gotta constantly buy seeds for to something akin to Stardew Valley in difficulty, it creates excess you can use for food energy and profit at the bar.

[son-goku]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Is there any reason to use quality booster on gold seeds? Or should I chose quantity booster for those? It's a slow process but I am eventually getting there. Had may first batch of 20 gold red wine yesterday *proud drunk noises*

The quality booster is the quantity booster. Using quality fertilizer II gives you two or three more seeds back then you used and it also increases the yield of the crop by 2 or 3 (assuming you have the farmer trait). The booster fertilizer only impacts the growth time.

PS: Also it seems like 2 fertilizers can be used at the same time? Like peat + quality boost?

No, peat is booth a quantity and speed boost. Using another booster is just waste.

I currently have 6 zombie farms and that leaves me with 9 fields for manual farming. I use those manual ones with gold star fertilizer if I run out of seeds. That won't happen for a while with onions and pumpkins ^^

[T-Bone Biggins]

Originally posted by son-goku:

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Is there any reason to use quality booster on gold seeds? Or should I chose quantity booster for those? It's a slow process but I am eventually getting there. Had may first batch of 20 gold red wine yesterday *proud drunk noises*

The quality booster is the quantity booster. Using quality fertilizer II gives you two or three more seeds back then you used and it also increases the yield of the crop by 2 or 3 (assuming you have the farmer trait). The booster fertilizer only impacts the growth time.

PS: Also it seems like 2 fertilizers can be used at the same time? Like peat + quality boost?

No, peat is booth a quantity and speed boost. Using another booster is just waste.

I currently have 6 zombie farms and that leaves me with 9 fields for manual farming. I use those manual ones with gold star fertilizer if I run out of seeds. That won't happen for a while with onions and pumpkins ^^

What he said, I totally misread the part about booster fertilizer. The booster fertilizer shortens time needed to grow. You can use silver quality fertilizer alone like I do and everything is fine, or you could add peat first to get a bronze quality booster rating since it's so common and cheap, then add the silver quality fertilizer for improved crop and seed yield.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Is there any reason to use quality booster on gold seeds? Or should I chose quantity booster for those?

Example; say you have plenty of gold-quality grape seeds. Planting them with just Peat should yield 4-6 produce and 3-5 seeds, and will take ~4 in-game days to mature. However, planting them with just Gold Quality Fertilizer (Q2) should yield 7-9 produce and 6-8 seeds, taking ~5 in-game days. So, you're practically doubling the production of produce and seeds per plot, while the crop takes a bit longer to mature with greater effort involved in producing the fertilizer.

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

PS: Also it seems like 2 fertilizers can be used at the same time? Like peat + quality boost?

Yes, you can, and it's not always a waste (as another user stipulated), though to each their own.

You will likely have an excess of Peat, as, for every 3 plots harvested, you should receive enough crop waste for ~12x Peat while only ever utilizing ~6x in the re-planting. Also, the latter modifier will overwrite the former, so after performing Peat + Q1/Q2 on a plot, the bronze hourglass should be maintained. Similarly, B1/B2 + Q1/Q2 (in either order) will apply their respective hourglass and star on the plot, with nothing being overwritten.

Boost (hourglass) fertilizer can be wasteful if you aren't being very attentive of your gardens. However, it's important to note that, while most crops take only 24 minutes to mature, Grapes take 50% longer / 36 minutes. So, if there was ever a plot to use the Boost on, I would suggest Grapes in the Vineyard, especially if you're mass producing red wine.