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Final Fantasy XI Discussion Board	Discussion Boards -> Crafting, Chocobo Digging, and Fishing
Crystal Feeding to Plants

From: Twotrigun
Registered User
Posted: 2006-06-20 23:21:49

How long do you have to feed the plant the crystal of your choice? I mean in real earth time. If anyone knows that would really help me out alot.

And the second thing I wanted to ask was that how long can you wait to harvest your plants. Lets say your plants are ready to harvest but you want to wait for a full or new moon cuz you want to try to see if that gives you new items. Thanks to anyone who knows the answers.

From: Penweaver
Registered User
Posted: 2006-06-21 12:36:56

Hello,

Unfortunately, there is not a good set answer. What determines this involves several factors. In my opinion, the three most important:

1. What type of seed are you using?
2. What type of pots are you using?
3. What type of furniture are you using?

For example, when I am growing Tree Cuttings to Sapplings, I use porcelin (sp) pots, and I have 21 (or 23, I dont recall) Maple tables in my mog house. I can wait between 2 and 3 days before feeding the crystal and about the same for harvesting it.

On the other hand, when I am growing Herb seeds with the same pots but no furnitures, I get about a day, maybe slightly longer (I havent risked it after that).

A couple rough rules I go by, if the plant takes one crystals, I try to not let it sit for more than 18 - 24 hours. If it takes 2 crystals, I try to feed the crystals within 2 days, and when harvesting, I let it sit for 2 days or so. When I am growing Sapplings to Ore, I will occassionaly let it sit for as long as 3 days before harvest (all those tables help with this).

I will freely admit, however, that I have not attempted to push this to find the limits. At this point, I primarily grow Cuttings --> Sapplings, then Sapplings --> Ore. Cuttings go from 10k a piece to 20k a piece, and sapplings can go from 20k - 40k occassionally. Ore goes for about 350k on my server. I am usually running 50 pots, so I havent really been willing to run the risk of losing my investment to push it. So instead, I push it a little each time I do a run.

As a final note, when growing things that take two crystals, having alot of tables will add about an extra day, maybe a day and a half that you can spend waiting to feed or harvest. It also adds about a 30% more growing time, same for the arcane pots. As an example, growing sapplings goes from about 19 days to about 24, or 25 days.

Hope this helped.

Pen

From: jill Guest Posted: 2006-06-22 13:25:10	Reply Quote
what type of ore do you make that sells for 350? And does the day affect the plant?

From: Twotrigun Registered User Posted: 2006-06-22 16:20:34	Reply Quote
Thanks for your info. It really helped me out ^^

From: Penweaver
Registered User
Posted: 2006-06-22 19:13:49

Hello,

At the moment, I try for Fire Ore and Ice Ore. When growing Fire Ore, the "bad" result is tons and tons and tons <insert 5 pages of tons> of Cinnimon. Cinnimon sells for about 2 - 6k a stack on my server. Fire Ore will occassionally dip to 280k and I have seen it go for as high as 380. Since March, I have never sold any below 300. None of the ore is currently selling for less than 250k the last time I checked.

Ice I have not been watching lately (since before March). When I was growing Ice Ore, it high/lowed about 330/275.

I am sorry to keep doing really long posts, but here is the info I have.

Most Runs

I ran 40 pots. All Procelin. No furniture, and everyone had all three pieces of harvest gear. One mule in each of the starting cities, and one in Jeuno.

Plant on Lights Day
Feed on Fires day
Harvest on Darks day (as close to full moon as possible)
check every OTHER day (earth day, not vanadiel) no specific elemental day.

Out of 40 pots, I usually get 6 or 7 ore.

DO NOT CHECK ON FIRESDAY EVERYTIME YOU CHECK. Make sure you mix it up. When I checked it only on Fire's day, I way over fertalized and only got 1 ore out of 40. Thats why I suggest doing it every other day, and on random vanadiel days.

Now, one run I did, I only ran 10 pots.

Plant on Light
Fed on Fire for the 1st crystal
Fed on Light for the 2nd crystal
Harvest on Dark.

I got 4 ore.

After that I reversed the feed days, fed on light first and fed on fire second and I got squat.

The next time I start a run, I plant to follow this recipe:

50 pots, 20+ tables in each moghouse
Plant on Light
Feed 1 on Fire
Feed 2 on Light
Harvest on Dark

As a rough rule of thumb, on the Cerberus server, you can make a good profit just growing cuttings to sapplings. No crystal, check every day, and you are guarunteed a minimum of 1 sappling for each pot. I average 16 sapplings per 10 cuttings.

On my server, sapplings general sell for about twice as much as cuttings. Ore tends to sell for about 50% more than sapplings (this is new, it used to go for the same as a stack of sapplings.).

I hope this helps, and again I am sorry for the long post.

Pen

From: Eviljayden
Guest
Posted: 2006-07-19 13:27:24

Can you explain why you plant on Lights day and harvest on Darks?

I wasn't aware that by just checking the plant you could overfertalize it.

Would I be correcet to assume the other ORE receipes would be similar. i.e. Plant on Lights day, feeding same crystal on days the crystal is strong to and then harvesting on Darks?

When you grew your Fire Ore, what happened when you harvested or planted on Firesday?

I ask because I just started to experiment to grow Lightning Ore and I just planted a Sapling in an Arcane Pot but I planted on Lightning Day.

From: Penweaver
Registered User
Posted: 2006-07-19 18:41:35

Mostly, this is all about theories that have been floating around, and as much as I can, I played around with my harvests to see which are legit and which ones are BS.

To really answer the question, I kind of have to go into the theory of gardening. Unfortunately, I cannot deffinitively prove any of this, so it could just be superstition at work, but my results (when I was tracking them) seemed to bear this out.

The idea is that everytime you plant, check, feed, or harvest adds an elemental charge to your plants. For example, if you check on Firesday, your plants will be slightly charged with Fire energy. Check again on Firesday, and it reinforces it. In addition, things like the city you plant in, check in, feed in, and harvest in also have a bear, as does the pot you use and seed you use.

Most of the seeds you plant have an organic result (like little worms, or fairie apples, what have you) and an inorganic result (like crystals or ore). The more energy you charge info your plant, the more likely you are to get the organic result. The less energy you put into it, the more likely you are to get the inorganic results.

So in this case, if I am planting Sapplings, and plant on Firesday, check on firesday, feed on firesday with a fire crystal, and harvest on firesday, then I am throwing a huge ammount of energy into the plant, and it makes it more likely that i will get the organic result. My tests bear this out as I have never gotten a fire ore by doing the above. Conversly, minimizing the fire energy reduces the amount of Cinaimin I get and increases the amount of fire ore that I get. However, you have to make sure that some minimum amount of fire does get in (thats where this gets really frustrating lol)

That brings two things to bear. You can over fertilize, meaning that you put so much energy into your plants, that you can get some unwanted results (like a dozen stacks of little worms), or even get it to the point that you get hardly anything at all. The unfortunate thing about that though, is that if you UNDER fertilize, the same thing can happen.

As for the light and dark days, the theory is that planting on light and harvest on dark (or the opposite incidentily) give you a better chance at getting the "better" or "hq" harvest. So you have a better chance of getting things like crystals, elemental ores, gold ore, etc.

Now, to confuse the whole thing, there is an obvious random factor that we cannot account for, but things that do help are moghancements (such as gardening) and then things that are just theorized, like the harvesting gear. On some pages I have even found people hypothisize that there is a gardening skill (though I tend to doubt that myself).

So, with all that said, to directly answer your qestions:

Would I be correcet to assume the other ORE receipes would be similar. i.e. Plant on Lights day, feeding same crystal on days the crystal is strong to and then harvesting on Darks?

From what I have read, this works for everything but Light and Dark ores. I personally have used this to get Fire, Ice and Water ore.

When you grew your Fire Ore, what happened when you harvested or planted on Firesday?

I got alot of cinamon and a little bit of crystal, but no ore.

I ask because I just started to experiment to grow Lightning Ore and I just planted a Sapling in an Arcane Pot but I planted on Lightning Day.

Personally, the planting day does not seem to affect things too much. The day you feed on seems to affect it more. If it were me, I would try to feed on lightnings day and harvest on Darks day. I would also try to make sure I only checked the plants once every other day (as long as you dont check more than once a day, you should still get at least 1 ore per 10 pots). Using an arcane pot is supposed to help with this alot. Unfortunately, I just recently got around to getting an arcane pot for each of my mules, and have been working alot with Cuttings --> Sapplings rather than trying for ore.

Personally, if I may make another random suggestion. If your server is anything like mine, and you really want to cut down on your costs, I could suggest running your plants with 3 or 5 mules. Have 1 or 2 of them doing nothing but growing Cuttings --> Sapplings, and then 2 or 3 running Sapplings --> Ore. Cuttings grow faster, so you should always be able to keep up on the demand of your sapplings. In addition, you will eventually be able to sell the excess Sapplings. That frees you up to buying cuttings, which are alot cheaper on my server, or even farming them if you can.

I hope this helped,

Pen

From: EvilJayden
Guest
Posted: 2006-07-20 11:14:55

Penweaver,

Yes, your answers have helped me understand more, thank you for taking the time to respond.

I have been very frustrated with gardening lately, to the point of almost getting rid of all my pots. Mainly because I feel like so much effort goes into this and it's never a guaranteed result.

Case in point, I have been experimenting to grow fire crystals. ( I have to go by memory here because my results are written down at home and I'm at work right now) I use 7 Brass Pots. Plant Vegetable seeds on Windsday. Now I check them once every Earth day but I never paid attention to what day I checked them on, but I would check all 7 at the same time. When the time came, I believe I feed a water crystal on Firesday to all of them, again, all at the same time. And if I remember correctly, I either harvested all 7 pots on Dark or Firesday. I figured since I did everything the same for all 7 pots, I would get the same result for every pot. But that was not the case, I either got LaTheine Cabbages or Fire Crystals, about an even mix of both.

To date, I can find no source that gives an exact "step by step" for growing anything with any guaranteed results. Sounds like it really is just random and luck, even if you do it correctly and 3 weeks for a sapling to mature is a LONG time to not get your desired results.

Thanks again for your time and input! Your posts have given me renewed hope and I will give it a few more tries before I start throwing my pots at my moogle.

From: Penweaver
Registered User
Posted: 2006-07-20 18:09:18

It can be very very frustrating, and you are correct, there is a HUGE amount of randomness involved. Combine that with a whole lot of conflicting information all over the web, and it can be enough to rip your hair out.

Case in point, when I was researching how to grow ore, I found out that alot of sites (like Allakazam) have people who troll through the boards and will go to great ends to those posts that have good enough removed from the board, or so low on the list of posts that no one ever reads them, then they will post "How To" walkthroughs that are nothing but disinformation to keep people from learning how to grow ore. Its very annoying lol.

To be honest if you want a sure fire method of making gil while gardening, I do suggest going the Cutting --> Sappling route. On my server (last time I checked) Cuttings were going for about 10k - 12k a piece, and Sapplings were going for about 20k. Given that you will probably average around 14 Sapplings for every 10 Cuttings you plant, make this incredibly profitable.

However, like you mentioned, it is slow. Essentially, when I first got into it, this is what I did.

I set aside 3 mules to garden with. Each had 10 pots. On Sunday night, I would buy 3 stacks of cuttings. I would plant 10 of the cuttings right away. Then I wait until monday rolled around and planted the next 10, and then waited for monday to roll around and planted the next 10. Doing it that way, about every week you will get a harvest. The first 2 or 3 weeks its a little tedious, but in the long run, you have a nice steady flow of income.

Anyhow, after buying the 3 stacks and only planting 30 plants, I would either sell of the loose 6 and help increase my profit, or hold on to it until I use it.

Either way, at current prices for my server, you would make about 100k to 200k a week. At this point, I run 60 pots all on the same cycle, and I average about a million gil or so a harvest.

Pen

From: Eviljayden
Guest
Posted: 2006-07-21 11:02:43

I have been looking around and I do see the Cuttings to Saplings potential, but I guess I'm gil hungry and thought if I have to wait 3 weeks for a harvest, I want the best possible money making result and that would be the ORE.

But there is logic in a guaranteed result vs a lucky random one for the ore.

I have seen a lot of conflicting info regarding gardening from many sites and decided long ago I would have to take it all with a grain of Rock Salt and test everything for myself.

EJ

From: Daven
Guest
Posted: 2007-03-08 14:53:47

hello Penweaver,

i've read alot of your posts over and over. There are still some things I'm fuzzy on.

Do you want to plant seeds on the same day as the seeds element? (plant a water seed on watersday) Or use a pot with the same element as the seed. Or even use the same crystal element as the seeds element. (use a fire crystal with a "fire" seed)

and as far as growing cuttings into saplings, why use porcelain?? and what day should i plant on and harvest on? And how long do the cycles for cuttings----->saplings usually take and for saplings------>ore

if you could post a quick and easy cut and dry method, I would be gratful.

Sincerley,
Daven

From: Penweaver
Registered User
Posted: 2007-03-08 21:05:27

Hi Daven,

For both cuttings --> Saplings and Saplings --> Ore.

Plant on Lights Day
Harvest on Darks Day

For Cuttings --> Saplings

Check once every other real life day. The day that you check does not seem to matter.

For Saplings --> Ore

To grow ore is a little more complicated. For example, to grow fire ore:

Plant on Lights Day
Check every other day (day does not matter)
Feed a Fire Crystal on Firesday
Harvest on Darks Day

This works well for me. I average about 1.6 fire ore per run of 10 pots. In theory, you can get a yield of about 4 Ore per 10 pots, but I havent figured that out completely. It mostly starts breaking down into very micro managing your garden. Planting not only on specific days, but also moon phases, and what not. It is far to complicated for me to really enjoy it, so I disregard it. I can tell you for sure that if you only check on Firesday, you will probably not get any Ore at all.

As for growing times. Cuttings --> Saplings take about 2 weeks (about 14 or 15 days) and Saplings --> Ore takes about 3 weeks (about 20 - 22 days).

Hope this helps.

Pen

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