Introduction
Potatoes are one of the most recommended crops for players looking to maximize their farming profits during the Spring season in Stardew Valley. They are especially ideal for new players in their first year on the farm due to their relatively quick growth time and decent profitability. Potatoes take only six days to grow, making them a fast option that allows players to harvest and replant multiple times throughout the season. This crop is not only beginner-friendly but also offers a reliable return on investment, helping players build their wealth early in the game. The Stardew Valley Potato Crop Guide will walk you through everything you need to know to get the most out of this valuable crop.
To grow potatoes, you will need to purchase potato seeds from Pierre’s General Store, which are priced at 50 gold per seed. Once you have the seeds, you’ll need to till the soil and plant them. Make sure to leave enough space around each seed for optimal growth, as each potato plant requires a 1×1 space. After planting, water the crops every day to ensure their growth. Potatoes, like all crops in Stardew Valley, rely on consistent watering to reach full maturity, so staying on top of this task is key to ensuring a successful harvest.
Potatoes have a relatively short growing period of six days, and once mature, they can be harvested. Each potato plant has a chance of yielding more than one potato, with the number of potatoes depending on the quality of the crop. While the base potato sells for 50 gold, higher-quality potatoes, such as silver and gold-tier, can fetch more, with silver potatoes selling for 62 gold and gold potatoes for 75 gold each. This increase in value based on quality means that using fertilizer or improving your farming skill to increase crop quality can be beneficial to your overall profits.
To further maximize your yield, you can use fertilizers, such as basic fertilizer or quality fertilizer, which increase the chances of growing higher-quality potatoes. The use of fertilizers isn’t necessary but can be an effective way to increase your profits, especially if you are focusing on selling high-tier crops. Additionally, if you have access to sprinklers, they can save you time by automatically watering your crops, allowing you to focus on other tasks.
In terms of profitability, potatoes offer a solid return on investment, making them one of the top crops for the Spring season. For players focused on maximizing their earnings, potatoes are a great crop to grow repeatedly during the season. Beyond simply selling them, potatoes also have other valuable uses. They can be used in cooking recipes, such as the hearty “Baked Potato” dish, which can be sold or consumed to restore energy.
Potatoes are also a favored gift for several villagers, making them a useful item for building relationships and increasing your social standing. Furthermore, potatoes can be donated to the Community Center, where they are required for the Spring Crops Bundle. This completion not only rewards you with useful items but also contributes to the overall progress of your farm.
While potatoes are a valuable crop, there are a few things to consider when planning your potato farming. The crop has a relatively quick turnaround time, allowing you to plant and harvest several times throughout the season. However, you should keep an eye on the calendar and weather forecasts, as Spring only lasts for 28 days, and you’ll want to make the most of the time before the season changes. If you time your potato harvests properly, you can continuously replant potatoes for a consistent and profitable income stream.
In conclusion, potatoes are an excellent crop to grow in Stardew Valley, particularly for new players who are still building up their farm. Their fast growth time, decent profitability, and multiple uses—ranging from cooking to gifting and contributing to the Community Center—make them a highly versatile crop. Whether you are focusing on earning gold, expanding your farm, or improving your relationships with the townspeople, potatoes provide a solid foundation for your farming journey in the Spring season. By following the Stardew Valley Potato Crop Guide, you’ll be able to grow, harvest, and profit from potatoes, ensuring that they become a key asset on your farm.
Basic Information
Potatoes are a Spring crop in Stardew Valley, meaning they can only be planted during the Spring season. They take 6 days to grow to maturity, not counting the day the seeds are planted. To plant potatoes, you need to buy potato seeds, which can be purchased for 50 gold each from Pierre’s General Store. Alternatively, if you have a JojaMart membership, you can purchase them for 62 gold each at JojaMart. The Traveling Cart may also sell potato seeds, but the prices there can vary, ranging from 100 gold to 1,000 gold, depending on the cart’s inventory.
Once planted, potato plants yield at least one potato per harvest, but there is a chance to get more. On average, each potato plant yields about 1.25 potatoes due to the occasional extra yield. This extra yield can be influenced by your Daily Luck, which affects the chance of receiving additional potatoes. When harvested, potatoes come in different qualities, each with a different selling price. Regular potatoes sell for 80 gold, silver-quality potatoes go for 100 gold, gold-quality potatoes are worth 120 gold, and iridium-quality potatoes sell for 160 gold.
In addition to their profitability, potatoes also serve a practical purpose for energy and health. Eating a potato will restore 25 energy and 11 health, making them useful for replenishing resources after a long day of work on the farm. This guide covers the basic aspects of potato farming, providing an essential foundation for growing and profiting from potatoes in Stardew Valley.
Harvesting Potatoes
Once your potato plants have grown fully, after 6 days, they are ready to be harvested. To harvest the potatoes, simply click on the fully grown plants. Each potato plant will yield one potato upon harvest, but there is a random chance to get additional potatoes from the same plant. On average, you can expect to harvest 1.25 potatoes per plant due to this chance of extra yield. The game generates a random number to determine whether extra potatoes will spawn, and this process repeats until the random number is too high, at which point no more additional potatoes will be harvested.
The quality of the potatoes you harvest is determined at the time of harvest, and there are four quality levels: Regular, Silver, Gold, and Iridium. Most harvested potatoes will be of regular quality, though you may get a few that are silver or gold quality. You can increase the average quality of your potatoes by planting seeds in fertilized soil. Iridium-quality potatoes are only possible when using Deluxe Fertilizer. Additionally, your Farming Skill plays a role in increasing the chance to harvest higher-quality crops.
Using fertilizers, such as Basic Fertilizer or Quality Fertilizer, when planting can increase the likelihood of harvesting higher-quality potatoes. Keep in mind that only one type of fertilizer can be applied to a tile at a time. Some fertilizers must be placed before planting the seed, while others can be applied before or after planting. Watering can be done at any time after tilling the soil, either before or after fertilizing or planting, giving you flexibility in managing your crops. This section provides a clear understanding of the harvesting process for potatoes, including the chance for extra yield and the factors that influence crop quality.
Profitability Analysis
Potatoes have an average yield of 1.25 potatoes per harvest, thanks to the chance of getting extra potatoes. This means that for every potato plant harvested, you can expect, on average, about one and a quarter potatoes. The profit from growing potatoes can be calculated by subtracting the seed cost from the selling price. For example, if you buy a potato seed at Pierre’s for 50 gold and sell a potato for 80 gold, your base profit is 30 gold per potato. However, the actual profit depends on the quality of the potato and whether it is sold raw or processed into an artisan good.
The profit per raw potato varies depending on its quality. A regular-quality potato, which sells for 80 gold, will provide a revenue of 100 gold per harvest, with a profit of 50 gold per plant after subtracting the seed cost. Silver-quality potatoes, sold for 100 gold, result in a profit of 75 gold per plant. Gold-quality potatoes, sold for 120 gold, bring in a profit of 100 gold per plant. Iridium-quality potatoes, which sell for 160 gold, result in a profit of 150 gold per plant.
Potatoes can also be processed into items like potato juice or pickled potatoes to increase their value. Pickled potatoes generally provide a higher profit than potato juice. When pickled, potatoes sell for 210 gold, giving a profit of 212.5 gold per harvest. If you have the Artisan profession, this increases to 317.5 gold per harvest. Potato juice, sold for 180 gold, gives a profit of 175 gold per harvest, which increases to 265 gold per harvest with the Artisan profession.
The Tiller profession boosts the value of raw crops by 10%, which increases the profit from selling raw potatoes but does not affect artisan goods like potato juice or pickled potatoes. For example, a normal-quality potato sold with the Tiller profession will sell for 88 gold. The Artisan profession increases the value of artisan goods by 40%.
For instance, pickled potatoes sell for 294 gold with the Artisan profession. Potatoes are not a multi-harvest crop, meaning they need to be replanted after each harvest. Under normal conditions, without speed-enhancing fertilizers, you can harvest potatoes up to four times throughout the Spring season. The number of harvests can be increased by using fertilizers, with the best-case scenario allowing for up to nine harvests.
The total profit from growing potatoes throughout the Spring season depends on the quality of the potatoes and whether they are processed into artisan goods. For example, without any professions or processing, the average profit from harvesting potatoes four times in the season is 375 gold. If all potatoes are of iridium quality, the total profit for the season increases to 600 gold. With the Tiller profession, the average profit for the season is 432.5 gold.
If you process potatoes into artisan goods, the profit is much higher. Potato juice, for instance, yields a profit of 700 gold without the Artisan profession and 1,060 gold with it. Pickled potatoes result in a profit of 850 gold without the Artisan profession and 1,270 gold with it. These calculations do not account for fertilizers, which can improve the quality of the potatoes and increase the overall profit.
Other Uses of Potatoes
In Stardew Valley, potatoes are more than just a source of profit. They also serve various other purposes that can benefit your gameplay in multiple ways. Potatoes are a key ingredient in several recipes, offering significant energy and health benefits.
Some of the recipes that require potatoes include hashbrowns, which are made with 1 potato and 1 oil, restoring 90 energy and 40 health, and providing a +1 Farming buff for 5 minutes and 35 seconds. The Complete Breakfast, a recipe that includes 1 fried egg, 1 milk, 1 hashbrown, and 1 pancake, restores 200 energy and 90 health while offering a +2 Farming buff. Other recipes such as Baked Fish, Fries, Crispy Bass, and Potato Croquettes also use potatoes as an ingredient, providing various amounts of energy and health benefits.
Potatoes are also highly appreciated as gifts by many villagers, which helps you build friendships. Villagers who like potatoes include Alex, Caroline, Clint, Demetrius, Dwarf, Elliott, Emily, Evelyn, George, Gus, Harvey, Jodi, Kent, Krobus, Leah, Leo, Lewis, Linus, Marnie, Maru, Pam, Penny, Pierre, Robin, Sandy, Sebastian, Shane, Willy, and the Wizard. However, some villagers, such as Abigail, Haley, Jas, Sam, and Vincent, dislike receiving potatoes as a gift.
In addition to gifting, potatoes are also required in certain bundles. They are needed for the Spring Crops Bundle in the Community Center’s Pantry, and you may need five gold-quality potatoes for the remixed Quality Crops Bundle. Completing bundles is an essential part of restoring the Community Center and unlocking various game features.
Potatoes may also appear in quests, such as being randomly requested on the “Help Wanted” board outside of Pierre’s General Store during Spring. Completing these requests earns you rewards, including gold and friendship points. Additionally, potatoes are required for the special order “The Strong Stuff,” where you need to keg twelve potatoes. Potatoes also have a use in tailoring and dyeing. They can be placed in the spool of the Sewing Machine to create the dyeable “Shirt And Belt,” or they can be used as an orange dye in the dye pots in Emily’s and Haley’s houses. Potatoes are versatile and can even be used to make an orange dye, further expanding their usefulness in Stardew Valley.
Additional Information
To plant potato seeds in Stardew Valley, begin by tilling the soil with a hoe. After the soil is tilled, place the potato seeds into the ground and water them daily to ensure they grow to maturity. If the seeds are not watered the same day they are planted, they will not grow that night.
Potatoes take 6 days to mature, not counting the day they are planted, so if planted on day 1 of spring, they will be ready for harvest on day 7. Fertilizers can be used to enhance the quality of your potatoes, with some fertilizers needing to be applied before planting and others being usable before or after planting. Only one type of fertilizer can be applied per crop, and watering can occur at any time after the soil is tilled.
In managing your potato crops, you must consider the possibility of crows eating your crops. If there are over 15 crops growing and no scarecrow within range, the crows can destroy your crops, so it’s important to place scarecrows in your fields to keep them safe. Farm animals, however, will not damage your crops. To make the watering process more efficient, sprinklers can be used, and planting potatoes in clusters helps to maximize the effectiveness of sprinklers.
Potatoes, like other crops, have four quality levels: regular, silver, gold, and iridium. The quality is determined when the crop is harvested and can be improved by planting seeds in fertilized soil. Iridium quality is only achievable with Deluxe Fertilizer. The higher the quality, the higher the sale price and the greater the energy and health benefits when eaten. When gifted to villagers who like potatoes, higher-quality potatoes also yield more friendship points. However, crop quality does not affect the health or energy gained from cooked food or the quality of artisan goods. Iridium-quality crops are visually distinct by their animated quality star in the inventory.
Although potatoes cannot become giant crops, other crops such as Cauliflowers, Melons, and Pumpkins can randomly form giant crops when planted in a 3×3 grid. Giant crops, when harvested with any axe, yield 15-21 normal-quality items. A 1% chance exists each day for any possible 3×3 grid of crops to grow into a giant crop, provided the top-left crop is fully grown, watered, and all crops in the grid are the same type. Giant crops are immune to the seasonal change that affects regular crops, but they cannot grow in the greenhouse, in garden pots, or on Ginger Island.
Potatoes are a single-season crop and only grow during the spring. However, other crops like Ancient Fruit, Coffee Beans, Corn, Sunflowers, and Wheat can continue to grow through multiple seasons. To maximize your profits from potatoes, save some for cooking, as they can be valuable gifts for villagers or used in energy-boosting recipes. The general formula for calculating gold per day is: Minimum Gold per Day = ((Max Harvests × Sell Price per Harvest) − Seed Price) / Growing Days, where Growing Days is calculated as the days to maturity plus the regrowth time for multi-harvest crops. Additionally, running while planting crops incurs a -1 speed penalty, which is reduced to -0.33 after reading the Ol’ Slitherlegs book.
This comprehensive information should help you further understand potato farming and related mechanics in Stardew Valley.
