Herb Farming Death and Harvest Rates

[LinkOlaran]

Just a quick question for you fellow Tipiters.

 

I've been farming off and on for the past couple years, and I recently got my friend into doing it as well (she normally hates it, but I convinced her to try since she could use the cash from herb farming).

 

I wrote up a short guide for her so she knows what to do, what order to do the patches in, etc. She's 68 farming, and farming spirit weed right now, was toadflax before - I watch Grimy's spreadsheet and double check the calcs myself to see what herb is currently the most profitable. She doesn't have access to magic secateurs (1 def), but it still provides a good enough guideline for her purposes. Anyway...

 

We all know herbs die. That's a fact, and it's unavoidable unless we watch each patch like a hawk to make sure it doesn't happen. My question is based off of what she told me about her harvests and deaths with both toadflax and spirit weed. Is it possible that each different herb has it's own average death and harvest rate, or is it universal to all herbs regardless of farming level or whatever, or it's just luck?

 

Based on what she told me, toadflax for her rarely ever died, but her toadflax harvests never really went that high, either - maybe from 5-10, I don't recall her mentioning any higher harvests. Spirit weed, though... she told me some of her harvests were over 10 per patch (I think the highest she mentioned was 14 for one patch), but spirit weed dies more often for her than toadflax ever did.

 

Basically, what do you think? Is there a difference between each herb's average yield and deaths? Does average yield increase with farming level? Do lower level seeds (spirit weed is 2 levels lower than toadflax, if I recall) die more often (which fits, since marigold commonly dies even for me)? Or is this all just a mix of good and back luck?

 

Apologies if my post is a bit hard to follow, I was doing a farm run as I was writing it :P I'm quite curious to know, though.

[manitstinks]

Pretty sure its the same 90% chance for everything. If you read guides a lot, you would see that many patches have a 10% death rate.

The part where your friend is talking different seeds? She probably read something about it, getting it in her head and mixing up numbers (placebo effect of some sort?). As far as I know, I have planted many different plants and they all seem to be the same for me.

[Merre]

Exactly my thought, I'm 90 farming now and I still notice every now and then a herb has died.

But never noticed one kind of herb seeds is more 'death resistant' than others...

Just use the best seeds in Trollheim patch and do a run every 2h (that's how I try to do it)

[LinkOlaran]

Alrighty, then. I suspected it was just random luck (and now that it's mentioned, Grimy's spreadsheet even has a death rate column >.<), but it's good to know regardless.

 

Thanks for the speedy replies, guys :P also, would it be worthwhile to make our own supercompost, or would it just be more efficient to buy it off the ge? More than likely it's better to buy it if you're a higher level, but since she's only 60 combat right now, it may be more preferable to make it herself. I've got her making supercompost in all the bins right now (due to inventory setup she doesn't need to bank twice per patch or anything, just in between each patch.

 

It does take a bit longer to make supercompost on a farm run, but it is also fairly profitable since she sells the extra compost she doesn't use, but... thoughts? I'll note her main source of cash right now is said herb runs, and doing slayer (which at her level varies between profit and loss quite a bit).

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention she doesn't have the trollheim patch yet, but she will be unlocking it eventually. A damn shame she can't get ahold of the magic secateurs, though (defence xp from either that quest or one of the quest reqs, I believe she said).

Edited December 23, 2010 by LinkOlaran

[Grimy_Bunyip]

Alrighty, then. I suspected it was just random luck (and now that it's mentioned, Grimy's spreadsheet even has a death rate column >.<), but it's good to know regardless.

 

Thanks for the speedy replies, guys :P also, would it be worthwhile to make our own supercompost, or would it just be more efficient to buy it off the ge? More than likely it's better to buy it if you're a higher level, but since she's only 60 combat right now, it may be more preferable to make it herself. I've got her making supercompost in all the bins right now (due to inventory setup she doesn't need to bank twice per patch or anything, just in between each patch.

 

It does take a bit longer to make supercompost on a farm run, but it is also fairly profitable since she sells the extra compost she doesn't use, but... thoughts? I'll note her main source of cash right now is said herb runs, and doing slayer (which at her level varies between profit and loss quite a bit).

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention she doesn't have the trollheim patch yet, but she will be unlocking it eventually. A damn shame she can't get ahold of the magic secateurs, though (defence xp from either that quest or one of the quest reqs, I believe she said).

yeah i'm not confident on the 90% death thing.

 

But I did get a large amount of data from herb farming and it's about 6 herbs per patch average

6.6 with secateurs (as they do boost harvests by 10%)

 

i balanced my spreadsheets so that including 90% deaths, it's still 6.6 herbs per patch with secateurs ignoring trollheim.

90% isn't too inaccurate though.

Don't have too much data on the matter though, just FYI :P

 

Don't want anybody pulling the 90% off my spreadsheets thinking there's bastion of data behind it ;o

 

only the 6.6 herbs per patch part.

[transcript80]

Making your own supercompost is hardly costing you any time. Buying the pineapples from Arhein in Catherby for 2gp ea and the free pineapples form Dell Monti give 80 pineapples a day for 80gp. Making supercompost made from these pineapples effectively 1 gp ea, plus a bit of farming xp. If you only plant herbs/flowers, they'll last a fair amount of time.

 

My strategy is to take 15 pineapples when I start a farm run, alternating the 2 free teleport spots to beging the rune with: Falador (cabbage-port) or port Phasmathys (ecto).