Rimworld Crop Guide

A complete and detailed analysis of the vanilla crops.

Update (2021-04-16)

I personally haven't played rimworld for a very long time and dont think I'll get into it any time soon. I did a quick check with the game regardless and a lot of the definitions/values have changed since the making of this guide. From a glance, most of the results/conclusions should more or less be the same. However, not all the values in the guide are accurate anymore.

BASE CROP STATS

Grow Days: Time the crop needs to spend growing
Real Grow Days: Grow days but taking into account day/night cycle
These are in-game values. The wiki is outdated

WORK EFFICIENCY

170 Sowing Ticks + 250 Harvesting Ticks = 420 Ticks
420 Ticks/60 = 7 Work
Pawn HRs = Pawn work in terms of in-game time for pawn with 100% work speed.
As you can see corn trumps all in the amount of work the pawns needs to spend. Rice grows fast but it requires significantly amount more work and pawn hours to supply the same amount of nutrition.
TLDR
WORK EFFICIENCY RANK: CORN>HAY>POTATO>STRAWBERRY>RICE

BIOME AND SPACE EFFICIENCY

Based on the crop's real growth days and biome, I calculated the number of times you could harvest in one year. A crop doesn't yield any ingredients if its below 70%. So any harvest growth that's below 70% has been rounded down. Above 70% the crop approx yields a percentage of the crops yield based on the plant's growth. These values are based on 100% soil fertility and 100% light levels.
So based on how many times you can harvest I calculated the tiles needed to provide 60 nutrition in a year. The differences in space needed for each crop was quite minute contrary to my own expectations and differed by growth period. I expected plants with a longer growth time needed more space. In actuality, growth time and plant yield were balanced so that regardless of the crop you would need the same amount of space to grow the same amount of nutrition.
HOWEVER, the important thing to take away from this chart is the # harvests per year based on the biome. There are risks to the game and events such as cold snap, toxic fallout, fires, etc will destroy crops. My personal recommendation is to pick a crop that you can get at least 2 or 3 harvests in a year in your biome. Corn is work efficient but very risky to grow and while you may be able to get 1 harvest off in a 20/60 biome it doesn't leave much room for mistakes and may in the end cost you pawn work.
TLDR
CROP RECOMMENDATIONS BASED ON BIOME
10/60: RICE
20/60: POTATO, STRAWBERRY, RICE
30/60: HAYGRASS, POTATO, STRAWBERRY, RICE
>=40/60: CORN, HAYGRASS, POTATO, STRAWBERRY, RICE

HYDROPONICS POWER AND NUTRITION EFFICIENCY

Nut/day: Nutrition provided by 1 hydroponics setup each day
Net Nut/day: Nut/day minus the power cost in the form of chemfuel
Work/day: Pawn work needed each day to keep setup going including work to make chemfuel
Nut/work: Nutrition provided by each work a pawn does.
Pawn HRs/day: Pawn Work/day in terms of in-game hours
Wattd/Nut: Power consumed to provide 1 nutrition
For a base that's running off of chemfuel and hydroponics bay providing the chemfuel, I calculated the efficiency that hydroponic setups would have. The 24 setup is the max num of hydroponics you can fit under 1 sunlamp and 20 is a layout I personally like.
If you're limited by steel or space for hydroponics, rice is best for providing the most nut per setup. Also, if you don't have a chemfuel setup going, power also becomes an issue and it would be more valuable to reduce the number of setups to conserve power and grow rice. In terms of Wattday required per nutrition produced rice consumes 47% less than potatoes. However, if you have steel and space and a chemfuel setup going, pawn work is the largest bottleneck in the amount of food you grow. Based on nut/work, growing potatoes trumps all and growing rice requires 63% more work per nutrition. Rice requires a LOT of work for the nutrition it provides. Strawberry is a good middle ground.
TLDR
RICE HYDROPONICS REDUCES STEEL, SPACE, POWER COST PER NUTRITION AT A HEAVY COST OF WORK EFFICIENCY
POTATO HYDROPONICS MAXIMIZES NUTRITION PROVIDED PER PAWN WORK
STRAWBERRY IS A GOOD MIDDLEGROUND

POWERING YOUR BASE WITH HYDROPONICS BAY AND CHEMFUEL GENERATORS

If you want to power your base with hydroponics bay and chemfuel generators this is how many watts 1 hydroponics setup will produce. 1 Rice with 24 hydroponics bay setup can produce fuel for up to 29 chemfuel generators or 29,000W. 1 rice setup produces 87% more power than a potato setup would but a potato setup provides 62% better watt/work efficiency. Strawberry is once again a middle ground.

TLDR

RICE MOST CHEMFUEL PRODUCED FROM 1 SETUP

POTATO MOST CHEMFUEL PRODUCED PER PAWN WORK

STRAWBERRY GOOD MIDDLE GROUND

GREENHOUSE EFFICIENCY (planting on soil with a sunlamp)

When I started this I was only interested in the efficiency between the different crops and hydroponics power efficiency. After making this I realized I wanted to know about the efficiency difference between greenhouses and hydroponics setup.

Greenhouses allow the growing of corn. The ability to grow all season with the most work efficient setup? Nothing beats corn. It is almost 2 times more work efficient than potatoes. Corn aside all the other crops have greater nut/work efficiency than their hydroponics versions. It is more important to note that all the crops have similar nut/day that gets more negligible in 100% soil fertility. Therefore it is beneficial to just grow corn (or hay for your livestock).

But the most interesting thing to note is that greenhouses in 140% fertility soil save you power per nutrition vs a 24 hydroponics bay setup. However, in 100% fertility soil growing rice and strawberries in greenhouses is less power efficient than their hydroponics counterparts. Regardless, I would just recommend just growing corn or haygrass in greenhouses. The power saved per nutrition isn't significant while the pawn work saved is.

TLDR

CORN AND HAY BEST FOR GREENHOUSES AND ALWAYS BETTER THAN ANY HYDROPONICS CROP FOR WORK EFFICIENCY

GREENHOUSES AREN'T ALWAYS MORE POWER EFFICIENT THAN HYDROPONICS

CONCLUSION

I didn't like how most people defaulted to growing rice and thinking that nut/day was a meaningful stat. I'm hoping the data I provided convinces you to grow other crops. For farming on soil, your first consideration should be # harvests you can pull off in your biome. Then of those crops pick the one that costs the least pawn work. If you want a work efficient hydroponics setup, grow potatoes. If you're finding yourself with pawns not having work and food stocks are low, switch to more strawberries. If you're finding yourself low on food but your pawns are busy, switch to a less work intensive crop if you aren't already and expand your growing rather than switching to a faster growing crop. Greenhouses you should almost always grow corn or haygrass.



Data based on 1.0.2096 values

Last updated 2018-12-5 minor edit 2019-3-15
Link to data and calculations[docs.google.com]

[Kent Mansley]

nice... but nutrient paste

[Ghost993514]

I think it's a pretty decent guide to go off of. I usually do a little bit of everything, though- Corn as my main crop with a little rice and potato so I can get fine meals early on and to make sure I'm almost always stocked with some vegetables. Potatoes are nice for when there isn't much for good soil, too.

[SUIK IBUIK]

ah yes, the rimworld community, the only one that can debate which is the superior option when it takes 3 hours to plant and 3 hours to harvest

[PLLvolt]

@kage Yes lower penalty for loss. Not disagreeing with that. Growing space is definitely a consideration but I personally don't see it as a big a problem as you do. Hydroponics are only a one time cost. Pawn work is a constant cost. I personally think it's a good investment. But ultimately, I think this is just a matter of playstyle.

With randy the critical limit is higher. Definitely close to impossible on the higher levels or on the other storytellers but on medium randy it's pretty easy to get 30+.

Regardless of the number, I think my point still stands. I guess it's fine if you're playing casually and/or lower difficulty you have pawns laying around, but I personally always have work to give my colonists to keep the base prepared for threats. Especially with large bases and higher difficulties, you tend to burn through a lot of resources to keep ur pawns alive.

[{GFG} Kage]

I never said rice had a greater overproducing ability. Rice has a far lower penalty for loss. As a result, you don't need to overproduce by nearly as much. It's easier to stabilize against a blight. Also, sure I can plant twice as many potatoes, but I need twice the growing space. Or if you're using hydroponics, you need even more than that to negate the penalty, which in turn means more work done, to make up the difference.

If you have a colony that big, you won't have trouble getting enough colonists to do the work. When any colony I have grows past 6, I have less work available per colonist. If you have 30 colonists, you won't have enough work to keep them busy, and they'll spend lots of extra time just idling around. You'll have plenty to help with farming at that point.

Also, the game is specifically designed to make growth past 15 extremely difficult except with Randy, so your arbitrary "30+" won't apply to a lot of colonies.

[PLLvolt]

@kage A lot of good points. But you're missing out taking work into account. For example, the over producing point. You can plant twice the amount of potatoes vs you can rice in the same amount of time. Yes, rice has an inherent lower risk to the lower growth period but you're misled into thinking that they have a greater overproducing capability.

And honestly, I think you're thinking too low of a scale. One dedicated grower for a large colony is definitely not enough. I consider a late-game colony as 30+. At that stage, you want to minimize the amount of growers required to support your colony so that a larger percentage of your colony is dedicated towards producing higher value goods. Minimizing the number of dedicated growers involves maximizing the amount they are each able to grow. Rice reduces the number of hydroponics but that's a one time fixed cost. Pawn time and increasing nutrition work efficiency is far more important late game.

[PLLvolt]

@fakka Yep. I agree. I address this in my biome section. I don't mention story telling directly tho. But using the same logic, there's pretty much the only answer for those short growing opportunities.

But arguably, if given the opportunity to utilize the longer growing period crops, they are a safer option as with the lower work costs you're able to build a larger buffer. But the decision is ultimately up to the player.

[PLLvolt]

@sevrun Yep. Grower skill is definitely an important consideration. If you have pawn work left over, it's definitely beneficial to burn it on increasing grower skill. This post was more oriented towards late-game optimizations.

[PLLvolt]

@camularity You're not taking into account yield. Growth bonus is included in calculations. I don't think you even understood the post, but no, rice is far less efficient work nutrient wise vs potatoes. Given the same amount of time to work you can have double the amount of nutrition of potatoes vs rice. Rice is definitely more space efficient nutrient/day wise. It is more efficient to substitute with strawberries rather than doing a rice:potato balance.

[Camularity]

Never ever grow Potatoes in Hydroponics. They suffer if not in non firtile soil. So Rice grants 280% growth bonus, Potatoes get 172%. It takes roughly 1.92 days for a rice crop and 6.22 for a potato due to lower bonus to growth. While the numbers above are correct, a pawn requiring 1.6 nutrient per day. Potato above produces 15.3 meals per day or roughly 9 pawns. Rice supports 16. The best ratio is to work out how much fast growing rice you need to fuel your setup then put the rest in potatoes to increase efficiency. TLDR; Rice to potato is roughly 3/2 across all factors incl work nutrient.