Crops (HM)



Crops are available to grow in Harvest Moon.

Seeds can be purchased from the Flower Shop. Crops will grow in a 3x3 square on your farm, which you can till with your hoe. In order to plant your seeds correctly, stand in the middle of the 3x3 square to plant all 9 seeds.

Crops must be watered daily in order for them to grow. Rainy days water planted crops automatically (crops planted in the rain must be watered by the player).

Once they are fully grown and ready for harvest, place them in the shipping bin.

Certain crops are only available during certain seasons, and there are no crops available to grow during the Fall season.

Turnip
The turnip is the fastest crop available to the player, ripening in just 4 days (2 days as a seed, 2 as a sprout). However, it is also the least profitable.

Note that since the shops are closed on weekends, you cannot get a head start by planting turnips on your first day, Spring 2. They will ripen on Friday, and the money will be delivered on Saturday, so you will be unable to spend it on more seeds until Monday - the same day that you would have been able to spend the (larger) profits from potatoes.

Potato
The potato appears as a seed for 3 days, a sprout for 3 days, and then it's ripe. It is the most reliable source of income in Spring.

Tomato
Tomatoes take 9 days to grow, passing through several plant stages, until they can be harvested. The plant then returns to an earlier stage, and will bear fruit again after 3 days. This can be repeated until the plant dies in Fall.

Corn
Corn takes 12 days to grow, passing through several plant stages, until it can be harvested. The plant then returns to an earlier stage, and will bear fruit again after 3 days. This can be repeated until the plant dies in Fall.

If harvests are uninterrupted for the season, then corn is more profitable than tomatoes. It allows only 6 harvests, compared to 7 for tomatoes, but each unit sells for 6/5 of the value of a tomato (100G vs 120G), making it approximately 3% more profitable overall. However, if the growing season is interrupted by hurricanes, then tomatoes, with a shorter growing time, are faster to recover.

Grass
Grass can be used to feed your animals. Once the Grass is fully grown you can cut the grass with your sickle and store it as fodder in your silo. Grass can be cut from Spring through Fall, but during Winter it remains dormant and won't grow back until next Spring.

Pacing
It is important to pace the planting because:
 * You don't want to be stuck with money on the weekends, when the shops are closed. It's better to buy extra seeds on Friday, so you can continue to plant.
 * You want to plant a set number of crops every day so harvesting is continuous instead of bursty, leaving time to go to town/the forest. With too many crops, you can literally not have enough time in the day to pick them all.
 * You don't want to plant crops that will be killed by a season change before they can be harvested. Note that crops planted in Spring will continue to grow in Summer; however, you don't want them to be in the way of your (more profitable) Summer crops.
 * Theoretically, potatoes and turnips can provide similar profit, because turnips sell for less but grow quicker. However, if you water less than 9 squares per bag of seed, then potatoes have the advantage, as their profit margin, after paying for the bag of seed, is higher. If you do water all 9 squares, then turnips lose their speed advantage, as the patch remains inaccessible for another 2 days until the centre is harvested. Thus, potatoes are somewhat more profitable in the long run. Also, this means for highest efficiency, the last planting of the spring should be maxed for potatoes.
 * Example 1: You plow 8 squares and plant them with turnips. The bag of seed costs 200G, and four days later, you harvest them all for 480G. Your profit is 280G, which is 70G per day.
 * Example 2: You plow 8 squares and plant them with potatoes. Six days later, you harvest them for 640G. Your profit is 440G, which is 73.3G per day.
 * Example 3: You plow 18 squares in two rows, for easy access with the sprinkler and saddlebags, and plant them with 3 bags of turnips. Four days later, you harvest them for 1080G. Your profit is 480G, or 120G per day.
 * Example 4: You plow 18 squares and plant them with potatoes. Six days later, you harvest them for 1440G. Your profit is 840G, or 140G per day.
 * It's good to maximize forage sales to the Peddler on Sundays. To accomplish this, it's good to skip or minimize harvests. It's most crucial to optimize turnips and potatoes since they don't renew their fruits: avoid planting turnips on Thursday, and avoid planting potatoes on Saturday.

Layout
Since crops become impassible with growth, it is generally more effective to only plant 6-8 seeds of a given seed bag in specific patterns. This is because watering and harvesting are limited by energy, the shipping deadline, and proximity to shipping locations. This is especially true once the player obtains the Sprinkler and the Saddlebags; at that point, the most efficient strategy is to simply plant long lines of crops, which can be picked and shipped with minimal travel time.