Comprehensive Guide To The Best Fertilizer in Stardew Valley

Your farming career is a little vanilla if you don’t own fertilizers. Suppose you find all of them handy but want to save some gold– which one will you choose? If you’re having difficulty picking, here’s a guide to the Best Fertilizer in Stardew Valley!

A player's collection of fertilizers in Stardew Valley.
Which one do you think is the best?

Starting an agricultural farm requires a scarecrow to keep crows away, single or multi-harvest crop seeds, or even a seed maker. Don’t forget to add your new fertilizers that greatly aid your farming journey in Stardew Valley.

You’ll find three types of it that focus on any of the following: quality-enhancing, growth-enhancing, and for water retention. These categories mainly target your crops and trees. An item that focuses explicitly on trees only is the Tree Fertilizer.

Now that you’re knowledgeable about every fertilizer category and all farming necessities, you might want to know which offers the most favorable performance. In this guide, you’ll learn about the Best Fertilizers in Stardew Valley alongside the pros and cons of picking them!

Best Fertilizer in Stardew Valley

The road to learning about each of them won’t give you a headache. Instead, it’ll make you feel less burdened as you save money after collecting seeds from stores like Traveling Cart and Pierre’s General Store. However, note that these items only work on single-harvest crops like parsnips, not strawberries and blueberries.

We ranked the best to worst fertilizers in Stardew Valley based on their functionality and accessibility!

1. Basic Fertilizer

A player with the best fertilizer in her chest in Stardew Valley.
We won’t make you wait long, here’s the best fertilizer in Stardew Valley!

Contrary to popular belief that quantity outweighs quality, we beg to differ in our concept. A Basic Fertilizer alongside its other variants, Deluxe Fertilizer (D.F) and Quality Fertilizer (Q.F), is handier for starters. It simply improves the soil quality on your farm and gives you better-grade crops, making it the best fertilizer in Stardew Valley.

A crop’s base selling price can increase from 25% to 100% once it reaches Iridium Quality with this item. Say that you have five Starfruits for Summer and used a D.F. on them. You’ll have higher streaks of getting better quality goods that sell for a better price.

Choosing this enhancer also helps you complete the Quality Crops Bundle in the Community Center. Unfortunately, the major improvements in your harvest’s quality don’t impact the grade of your jelly and honey in-game. 

Nonetheless, we still consider it the best fertilizer because its recipe is more accessible than a Speed-Gro.  And it’s still more lucrative especially if you grow the most profitable crops. Below are the ingredients you’ll need to make them:

ItemRecipeRecipe Souce
B.F2 SapFarming Level 1
Q.F2 Sap
1 Fish
Farming Level 9
D.F1 Iridium Bar
40 Sap
20 Qi Gems from Qi’s Walnut Room

2. Speed-Gro

A player with a chest containing Spreed-Gro.
Second-best isn’t bad, right?

Most think this is the “best” fertilizer as it can speed up the growth of your crops by 10% to 33%. It may become 20% to 43% if you choose the Agriculturist Profession. Despite the advantage of growing more crops quickly, we find it quite disadvantageous. Why? There’s a limit to the number of seeds you can acquire, not unless you modded the game. 

Your farm has plenty of space, and you won’t need to speed it up and get a teensy amount of profit from a crop’s regular base price. If you have many seeds or want to complete quests immediately, this item will be on your side. However, profit-wise, you’d be wasting a fortune settling for these things.

If you’re convinced that lessening the amount of time is the solution; refer to the table below and check its crafting recipe:

ItemRecipeRecipe Source
Speed-Gro1 Pine Tar
1 Clam
Farming Level 3
Deluxe Speed-Gro1 Oak Resin
1 Coral
Farming Level 8
Hyper Speed-Gro1 Radioactive Bar
3 Bone Fragments
1 Solar Essence
Qi’s Walnut Room for 30 Qi Gems.

3. Retaining Soil

A player with a chest containing Soil Retaining Fertilizer.
We suppose it can still be useful.

Here’s another interesting aid for soil. Unlike the first and second items, this doesn’t benefit your harvest’s growth or quality. It only keeps the soil’s moisture after you water it. This feature prevents your plants from withering more quicker. 

However, is it really a necessity if you already have a sprinkler on Farming Level 2? We don’t think so. It ranks third for a pretty apparent reason, but if you want to learn how to craft it, you can follow the recipe below:

ItemRecipeRecipe Source
Quality Retaining Soil2 StoneFarming Level 4
Basic Retaining Soil3 Stone 
1 Clay
Farming Level 7
Deluxe Retaining Soil5 Stone
3 Fiber
1 Clay
Island Trader for 40 Cinder Shards in Ginger Island.

4. Tree Fertilizer

A player with a chest containing a Tree Fertilizer.
Alright, are we into trees this season?

Lastly, we’re now onto the “not-so-preferred” fertilizer in Stardew Valley. As its name suggests, it only works on wild trees, not fruit trees. If you have some wood shortage in Winter, you might want to purchase or make this item since it’s the only way to grow saplings this season.

Nonetheless, it still ranks the lowest among all fertilizers in-game for the most obvious reasons. But if you want to make one before the season changes, ensure you’ve reached Foraging Level 7 first and obtained its recipe. You’ll need five fibers and stones for it.

Meet the author

Video Games aren't exactly my thing, but upon discovering Stardew Valley, I learned to enjoy it. It's a really simple yet exciting game that everyone should try to kill time.

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