The foundation of every farming game should be just that, farming! Sunflower Land provides with a dynamic and interesting way to grow crops, fruits, and other produce. Nearly everything starts in the ground, and many game mechanics work together to maximize the fertility of your land.
The term “crops” refers to plants that are grown in Crop Plots. You will have several of these on your farm when you begin the game, and will earn more as you expand. Any crop plot can grow any kind of seed, provided it is currently in season. All crops start out as seeds, which you can buy from the Farmer's Market on your home island.
When you select a seed from the Market or from your inventory Basket, it will appear at the top of the quick-select bar at the right of the screen. These are your three most recently selected items, and you can choose one of the other two to become the active selection at the top. There is no confirmation when you plant a seed, so make sure you are putting the right one in the right place! There is also no way to destroy or remove a seed from a plot once it has been planted. Even if you use the farm designer (hand) tool to remove the plot from your farm, it will retain the growing seed inside your inventory and continue to mature once you replace it.
Each seed must be planted one-by-one with a tap or click. There is no quick-plant or bulk sowing option to sow all of your plots at once, or to harvest them when they are ready. This game is about patience and focus, not mindless tapping!
Once you've planted a seed, a number will appear over the plot with the rounded time remaining until harvest, and a green bar to represent it another way. These timers can be disabled via Game Options→General Settings→Preferences → Timers, if you want. You can also tap or mouse over the plot to see the specific amount of time down to the minutes or seconds.
Sometimes when you harvest a crop, you won't get the product right away, a blue bar appears underneath it and you will need to click on the crop a second time. A window pops up asking you to do a simple CAPTCHA-like challenge, either tapping the chest on the field or choosing the goblins out of the other green icons. Don't worry, this is perfectly normal, and is part of the game's ongoing effort to combat bots and other bad actors.
After solving the puzzle, you'll get an extra 1-3 seeds for the crop you just harvested, which is useful for the more expensive seeds.
If you fail to solve the puzzle by clicking on the wrong elements, you will be locked out of the game for 5 minutes. Take a break and get back to farming!
If these harvest pop-ups start to become annoying, don't worry. Once you fulfill all of the following criteria, they will stop appearing (and you will still get bonus seeds periodically!):
Crops are divided into three types: Basic, Medium, and Advanced.
Basic crops grow quickly, between 1-30 minutes. They are designed for a more active play style of constantly harvesting and replanting, and can actually yield a higher profit than the slower growing crops. The skill Young Farmer increases their output by +0.1.
Medium crops are predictably in the middle, taking between 1-12 hours per harvest. They play an important role in many recipes and products. The skill Experienced Farmer increases medium yield by +0.1.
Advanced crops take the longest, ranging from 16-48 hours before maturity. These are best to plant overnight, or if you will be away from the game for a while. The skill Old Farmer increases advanced yield by +0.1 also. The skill Strong Roots decreases their long growth times by 10%.
There are two specialization skills, Acre Farm and Hectare Farm. Acre Farm increases the yield of Advanced crops by +1, while decreasing Basic and Medium by -0.5. Conversely, Hectare Farm boosts Basic and Medium by +1 and decreases Advanced by -0.5. Taking both of these skills does even out to +0.5 for all crop types, but choosing one over the other can lead to some serious boosts in output and profit.
You can see the type of a crop in the Farmer's Market either by selecting it in the Buy tab or in the Guide tab. Seeds are organized in your inventory by type order.
As you expand your farm and gain more crop plots, you will find some to be grayed out and unusable. It's time to build a Water Well! Find in the workbench and place it somewhere on your farm. It does not have to be anywhere near the plots themselves. As you continue to expand, you will need to upgrade the well, to a maximum level of 4. You can see the requirements for the well upgrades at https://sfl.world/info/const/#BUILDINGS
The well was not always upgradeable, instead you had to place multiple wells on your farm to handle more crops. If you still happen to have an extra well, visit Garbo so he can take it off your hands.
Crops do better with some love and attention, and you can help your plant along before it's ready. Fertilizers can be applied while a crop is growing. Sprout Mix will increase the yield by a flat +0.2, while Rapid Root will decrease the remaining growing time by 50%. For that reason it's almost always best to use Rapid Root as soon as you plant a crop.
You can only apply one fertilizer or the other to a plot, not both, and only once per harvest. You can apply either fertilizer to a plot while it is empty, and it will boost the next crop grown in it. You also can't apply Sprout Mix when a crop is fully grown and ready for harvest.
While there is no way to sow or harvest all plots at once, there is a way to mass-apply fertilizer. The Sprout Surge power skill adds Sprout Mix to all crop plots on your farm that don't already have a fertilizer added to them, while Root Rocket does the same for Rapid Root.
If you're lucky enough to get a pollination celebration from your beehive, the bonus will be applied on top of any other fertilizer you have already added, and it will stack with subsequent bee swarms. Take the skill Pollen Power Up to increase the boost to +0.3, and Bee Collective to increase the chance of a swarm by another 20%
There are three items you can craft which will directly boost your crop outputs, and are well worth the investment. Each scarecrow will only affect the crops planted in a 3x3 grid directly below it, as shown by the glowing square when placing it. This range can be increased to 7x7 with a skill specific to each scarecrow.
The Basic Scarecrow reduces the growing time of the already quick Basic crops by another 20%. The Chonky Scarecrow skill increases the range and reduces growth time by an additional 10%.
Scary Mike frightens your Medium crops into producing another +0.2 yield boost. The Horror Mike skill increases the range of effect and increases the boost to +0.3.
Laurie the Chuckle Crow stands watchful over your Advanced crops, increasing the yield by +0.2. Spending skill points on Laurie's Gains increases the range and boost to +0.3 as well.
It's important to note that the area of effect for the scarecrows can overlap, meaning the boost will be applied to multiple types of crops planted in their range. Even if all are lined up in a row and their range increased, however, you cannot have all three affect the exact same area.
Fruit Patches are unlocked once you advance your island to Petal Paradise, and they are worth your time. Fruit seeds are available in the market alongside crop seeds, according to the current season. They cost a bit more than crop seeds, but as you can see from their description, you will get multiple harvests from each one.
After you plant a fruit seed, it will take the listed time to produce one harvest. After harvesting, the timer will restart and grow another. You must harvest the fruit before another one will start growing, so keep an eye on them.
Once the number of harvests has been reached, the fruit plant will die and turn into a stick. You need to have an Axe to cut it down and return the plot to an empty state before you can plant another seed. In return, you will get 1 Wood. Take the skill No Axe No Worries to be able to clear dead plots without an Axe, at the cost of receiving no Wood. Or, take Fruity Woody to boost the Wood return by +1. Taking both gives you +1 Wood with no Axe usage.
The game does not indicate to you how many harvests remain on each of your fruits. If you really want to know, however, you can find out at https://sfl.world/map/ (Enter your Farm ID)
When you click or tap on a fruit patch and do not have a fruit seed in your quick-select bar, you will be shown a popup of the currently available seeds for that plot. Selecting one will plant it in that patch, and make it be your currently selected item. You can turn this off if you choose in Game Options → General Settings → Preferences → Quick Select. Clearing a spent plot will cause the Axe to be your current item, so you will need to quick-select again to continue planting.
The game does not divide each fruit up into types like it does for crops, but clear groupings can be seen.
Tomatoes and Lemons can be considered Basic fruit, as they take 2-4 hours to produce one harvest. The skill Zesty Vibes will increase their yield by +1, while decreasing the other four by -0.25. The skill Crime Fruit also increases the amount of stock at the market for both by +10.
Blueberries and Oranges are Medium fruit, clocking in at 6-8 hours each. The skill Short Pickings decreases their growth time by 50%, while doubling the growth time of all others.
Apples and Bananas make up Advanced fruit, taking 12 hours between each harvest. The skill Long Pickings does the same for these two, halving their time while doubling the others.
Three of the six fruits can be planted per season, and one of them is always valid for the season following the current one. For example, Oranges grow from spring through summer, while Apples are viable from autumn all the way to the end of winter. Use this fact when planning your orchard to ensure maximum output.
In addition, the monthly “moon berries” of Celestine (Basic), Lunara (Medium), and Duskberry (Advanced) fall into a category of their own. All fruit boosts and bonuses apply to these three as well.
There is one fertilizer available for fruit plots, called Fruitful Blend. It will increase the output of every harvest on a plant by +0.2. It does not need to be reapplied until the plant dies and a new one is planted. The Fruitful Bounty skill doubles the effect of this fertilizer, making a total boost of +0.4 to every harvest. The Blend-Tastic skill allows you to apply fertilizer to every fruit patch at once, which can be very useful to ensure every one has been treated.
You can craft an item at your workbench called the Immortal Pear, which when placed on your farm will increase the number of harvests per plot by +2. This will only happen for fruits you plant after you place it, not for fruits that are already growing. The skill Pear Turbocharge doubles the effect of this item, giving a total of +4 harvests per plot.
You can also “craft” the Macaw, which increases the yield of all fruit patches by +0.2. The skill Loyal Macaw increases this boost to +0.4. Both items can be placed anywhere, including in your house, to take effect.
The fertilizers that you need to improve your farm come from Composters, a set of three items that you can build from your workbench. What goes into these wonderful devices? Crops and fruit, of course! Each composter requires a different set of items that changes each season. As appropriate for a three-tier system, each one requires a higher grade of resources as you step up. You can see the full list of requirements broken down by season at https://sfl.world/info/const/#SEASON_COMPOST_REQUIREMENTS
After you start it cooking, a composter can be sped up by adding Eggs, which will decrease the time remaining by 2 hours. If it has less than 2 hours remaining, it will complete immediately. The Feathery Business skill will change the boost to require Feathers rather than Eggs, but it will take twice as many. The Composting Bonanza skill will increase the boost time to 3 hours, but increase the resource requirement by another factor of two. If you're using Feathers already, this could make it too expensive to continue boosting.
If you don't fish that much, you can take the Composting Revamp skill, which will increase the fertilizer output of each unit by +5, while decreasing the worm output by -3. This will likely result in you getting no worms at all unless you boost them another way. Conversely, the Composting Overhaul skill will boost worm production by +2, while decreasing fertilizer output by -5.
The first composter you will build, this one is the smallest and requires the simplest crops, mostly Basic and some Medium. In return, you will get the humble Sprout Mix, along with a few Earthworms for fishing. The Efficient Bin skill increases the fertilizer amount by +5.
Despite its name, this composter actually produces Fruitful Blend, but takes only Medium and Advanced crops. You'll also end up with fishing Grubs. The Turbo Charged skill increases the output of Fruitful Blend by +5.
This composter is so high-end, it requires a mountain of Gold to build, not to mention the expensive fruits and Eggs needed to make it work. It will give you not only the coveted Rapid Root, but also Red Wigglers, the highest-tier fishing bait. The Premium Worms skill boosts Rapid Root output by +10, not worm output, but there is another skill to increase that.
The Greenhouse is an advanced building that is only available for players on the Desert Island, and requires a large amount of resources to build and use. Once it is ready, though, it provides unique crops that you can't grow anywhere else.
Greenhouse crops grow from seeds bought from the market. The greenhouse only has four plots, and cannot currently be expanded. Fertilizers cannot be applied to greenhouse plots, but the output and growth time of each crop can be increased or decreased by various skills. The quick-select system used in fruit patches also works on greenhouse seeds.
All three crops require Oil, which must be added to the greenhouse's machine before you can plant a seed in a plot. It can only be added in multiples of 5, or you can add all the Oil you have in your inventory. The requirements for each seed are displayed on the screen where you add Oil, and can be affected through various skills.
Greenhouse crops can be grown in any season, since it is a protected environment. The consensus among most players is that the greenhouse is too expensive to run until much later in the game, but if you want to ensure you will always be a contributing member for your Faction Pet, or be able to handle any delivery from any NPC, you may choose to use it despite the cost.
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librophagus - primary content
iSPANK - minor edits, linking, tagging