DON'T Pay For your Trees, but DO Power Farm

Used to be: The Economic Farmer Payment Guide (or, why you shouldn't pay for them)

Now:

DON'T Pay For your Trees, but DO Power Farm

I am an avid farmer, and have picked up a few tips over the levels. By far the best tip I heard was to stop making farmer payments. When I first started, I worked hard to pay for everything. If you are reading this then I am sure you know the feeling of rushing around for that last apple, or conjuring bones to bananas for that last basket of bananas. Saving money by letting crops die might seem counter intuitive, but follow along and allow me to change your mind.

TOC

• 
   
  1. The Basis
   
  2. Hard Numbers
   
  
  • 2.1 Yews
     
    2.2 Magics
     
    2.3 Pineapples
     
    2.4 Apples

3. The Exceptions

• 3.1 - Curry
   
  3.2 - Papaya
   
  3.3 - Spirit Trees

4. Why you should Power Farm

5. Closing Thoughts

6. FAQ

7. Edits

1. The Basis

The basis behind this way of thinking is that when you pay a farmer to watch your trees, you end up paying far more than the value of the tree seed itself, because most trees would actually live. The low rate of death negates any benefit to making that payment in the first place. You might be thinking, "wait, that yew cost me 80k, and I have these cactus spines in my bank, it's free isn't it?". That is true to an extent, but you could also sell those cactus spines for 3k each on the various forums. The cost of one payment is ten cactus spines, or about 30,000gp. True it is less than the cost of a yew seed, but what if you didn't pay the farmer and your tree lived? In game I am averaging one death every ten trees. I am saving ten payments of 100 spines worth 300,000gp by sacrificing one 80,000gp yew seed.

Sure there are exceptions to this rule, but if you are working on high level farming, then they really don't come into play. This guide will primarily focus on paying for trees. I might make a guide about allotments (or add them in here), but they are more straight foreward than trees are, and much cheaper to protect. This also holds true for herbs, but in a slightly different way, in that time is money. By power-farming them, and letting a few die, you will actually make more money in the long run because of higher volume. If you stand over a plot, you are 100% assured of 7 herbs. If you power farm five plots, your yield drops to about 93% (I average one death every 15 seeds). Would you rather have 100% of 7 or 93% of 35 over the same time period?

2. Hard Numbers

Even if you average more deaths than I do (you shouldn't as they are all based on the same thing), here are some graphs I made up to illustrate my point.

2.1 Yews

In this first case, you can clearly see that it costs you more to pay for trees than you would save by selling the payment and just buying more seeds.

The break even point here is 3.75 deaths per 10 yews. The numbers used here were 80,000gp as the cost of a yew seed and 3,000gp per spine.

2.2 Magics

Magic trees might seem to big a big loss if they die, but in reality, they are the worst tree to pay for in the game.

The break even point here is 4 deaths in evey 10 seeds planted! I calculated the costs based on 125k for the seed, and 2,000 per coconut. You would have to kill 5 Magics of every 10 to actually make money by paying for them. With magics the roots are also valuable and sell for 50k, and I added that into the cost of the seed.

Seed cost - Root cost = Actual seed cost

175,000gp - 50,000gp = 125,000gp

The cost of 25 coconuts is 50,000gp

Does that paint a clearer picture?

2.3 Pineapple Trees:

Here again, you can clearly make a much better profit for selling your watermelosns for 800gp each, and even more than that by making them into super compost and selling that for 1k each.

With pineapples, you can kill off four in ten seeds and still come out ahead. I used 20,000gp for the cost of the pineapple seeds and 800gp each as the value of the payment, or ten watermelons.

2.4 Apple Trees:

This benefit is also some times not monitary, such as in the case of apple trees. The payment there is ten raw sweet corn. By making that payment you trade off either 10,000 cooking XP or 50,000gp every ten trees.

No graph for this one because it should be obvious. Raw sweet corn has much better uses than farmer payments. Tuna Corn Potatoes FTW!

3. The Exceptions:

3.1 Curry Trees:

It takes almost no time to buy 20 baskets, and glory to karamja and collect enough bananas at the plantation for the payments on 4 trees. Also, if you only need a few more bananas, you can finally put the bones to bananas spell to good use. Kill a man and make his bones into bananas. Trust me here, you will feel good making use of that spell for once.

3.2 Papaya Trees:

With a straight economic comparison like the ones above, you do actually lose money when paying for these trees, but pineapples are very easy to get. Both Catherby and Karamja plots have a charter ship next door so you can just buy the payments when you need them.

3.3 Spirit Trees:

This one really is a no brainer. The payment is very cheap at: 5 Monkey nuts, 1 Monkey bar, and 1 Ground suqah tooth. These items do however require that you have a few quests completed.

4.0 Why you Should Power Farm

When I say Power Farm, I mean hitting all patches to at least plant a herb. I also recomend Planting the allotments as well. They are easy to take care of and at the least, you can make compost every trip from the produce.

Here are my calculations for farming herbs. My average is 93% survival rate, so the basic premise is that you are better off having 93% of the produce from 5 herb patches over 100% of 1 herb patch.

By doing this you gain an exponential return on herb yields. All Plots can be farmed in 6-8 minutes, so even if you want to stand over one to watch it, taking a short break every 90 (some times as little as 75) minutes is well worth the effort.

Here are the calculations after just 3 rounds:

Watching over

Round 1:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Profit: 24,000 (49,000-25,000)

Round 2:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Cumulative profit: 48,000 (24,000+49,000-25,000)

Round 3:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Cumulative profit: 72,000 (48,000+49,000-25,000)

All rounds are the same here actually

By the end of round 3 you have spent 4.5 hours and have grown and sold a total of 21 herbs. The seeds cost a total of 75,000, and you sold them for 174,000, leaving a profit of 72,000 over 4.5 hours of in game time.

Power Farming

Round 1:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Profit: 102,850 (227,850-125,000)

Round 2:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Cumulative profit: 205,700gp (102,850+227,850-125,000)

Round 3:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Cumulative profit: 308,550gp (205,700+227,850-125,000)

At the end of 4.5 hours you have spent 4.5 hours and have grown and sold a total of 97.65 herbs. The seeds cost a total of 375,000, and you sold them for 683,550gp, leaving a profit of 308,550. You can hit all 5 plots in 6 or 7 minutes as well, so power farming them only really takes less than 18 minutes of in game time for these results.

5.0 Closing thoughts

I have left out some trees from my guide. Those should pretty much be no-brainers though. With a high farming level you should have more than enough product to pay for the other trees, so you might as well. Last I checked tomatoes were nearly worthless.

I am slowly updating this guide as I get more time to add figures and back up my position on not paying farmer payments.

6.0 FAQ

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7.0 Edits/Credits

Great start. I would also talk more then just Tree's payments.

cool...it look like it will be nice guide!

Good topic, i can't wait to see the finished guide!

Got magic trees updated just now. I will have more time to get the rest done in a bit.

this is a great guide, if u wanted 2 make it better u could expand it with different plants other than trees

Thanks Cheese! And thanks again for the post on my enchanted lyre guide. I do have statistical data on all of my farming, but it is a matter of time to get it all into a guide.

The few sentances on the herb patches could easily fill an entire guide as well. It is one of the places that RS can really teach people about real life actually. The vast majority sadly would take 100% of 7 herbs over 93% of 35 herbs.

Having another guide I worked hard to complete locked really did dampen my guide writing spirits though. If you see my bucket guide around feel free to PM pokemama about locking it for no good reason.

great guide! :thumbsup:

I get everything except the graphs, which i find confusing and unlabeled.

it might just be me but would you mind clearing those up a bit?

8/10, very usefull =D>

good finds.

part of the reason the economy has shifted its prices of 3k per coconut and 3k per spine is because people dont want to waste their time growing dead trees. and while it appears u actually lose money, you save a lot more time, time u could use to make double nats \ \

Very nice guide 8-)

What is your opinion on Palm trees though? My favorite thing to do is get 3 papaya trees growing, and one palm. That way, I will have 18 papaya harvested by the time I go to replant the Palm.

Great advice for the magic and yew seeds, though. Now I can start making money from spines instead of holding them to grow trees. :)

good finds.

 

 

 

 

 

part of the reason the economy has shifted its prices of 3k per coconut and 3k per spine is because people dont want to waste their time growing dead trees. and while it appears u actually lose money, you save a lot more time, time u could use to make double nats \ \

ID - I think you are missing the main point of my guide here. Growing a tree is not an active event at all. Plant, go off to do something else. Unlike nat running, you don't even have to be logged in to do it. From any bank it takes all of 60 seconds to get to any of the tree plots, so no real waist of time with planting either.

The real waist of time would be in trying to buy coconuts or spines. Everyone wants them, no one sells them.

Here is a quick assessment for some of the other types:

Allotment - If you have a fully grown protection flower (or scarecrow) in place, your allotments will not die. Strawberries have no protection flower, but the easiest way to pay their payment is by the RFD chest (it sells 50 apples if you have completed RFD).

Bushes - Not sure about the lower bushes, but I have grown hundreds of Whiteberry and Poison Ivy bushes with Supercompost and I never pay the farmer. I honestly cannot remember the last time one died.

Herbs - If people are really scared about their herb seeds, plant your best seeds in the My Arm patch (rannar/snapdragon) and plant your lesser herb seeds in the other plots.

Thanks Cheese! And thanks again for the post on my enchanted lyre guide. I do have statistical data on all of my farming, but it is a matter of time to get it all into a guide.

 

 

 

The few sentances on the herb patches could easily fill an entire guide as well. It is one of the places that RS can really teach people about real ife actually. The vast majority sadly would take 100% of 7 herbs over 93% of 5 herbs.

 

 

 

Having another guide I worked hard to complete locked really did dampen my guide writing spirits though. If you see my bucket guide around feel free to PM pokemama about locking it for no good reason.

'Ello ello, wha's all this then? 100% of 7 herbs (7) or 93% of 5 (4.65). I don't understand what's bad about wanting the one with more herbs.. (I'm yet to farm a herb so give me a break if it's obvious :P )

Guide on buckets of compost? Or just.. buckets?

'Ello ello, wha's all this then? 100% of 7 herbs (7) or 93% of 5 (4.65). I don't understand what's bad about wanting the one with more herbs.. (I'm yet to farm a herb so give me a break if it's obvious :P )

Re-read the guide. It is posted correctly there. It is the difference between standing over 1 plot and watching it grow or power farming 5 plots. I have months of data that averages out to about 7 herbs per plot, so I will use that in this example. Standing over ONE plot to watch it grow will give you a 100% yield, 100% of 7=7 herbs. In my guide I wrote that by power farming you gain 93% of 35 herbs (or 93% of 5 plots as my post should say).

Basically it boils down to this: You can get a higher return on your herb yield per seed by watching over herbs. The reason you shouldn't do this is because you can get more herbs (and XP) per hour by power farming. Using ranars as a classic example, it would look like this:

Watching over

Round 1:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Profit: 24,000 (49,000-25,000)

Round 2:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Cumulative profit: 48,000 (24,000+49,000-25,000)

Round 3:

Plant 1 herb

90 minutes later - 7 herbs

Sell for - 49,000gp

Cumulative profit: 72,000 (48,000+49,000-25,000)

All rounds are the same here actually

By the end of round 3 you have spent 4.5 hours and have grown and sold a total of 21 herbs. The seeds cost a total of 75,000, and you sold them for 174,000, leaving a profit of 72,000 over 4.5 hours of in game time.

Power Farming

Round 1:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Profit: 102,850 (227,850-125,000)

Round 2:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Cumulative profit: 205,700gp (102,850+227,850-125,000)

Round 3:

Plant 5 herbs

90 minutes later - 32.55 herbs

Sell for - 227,850gp

Cumulative profit: 308,550gp (205,700+227,850-125,000)

At the end of 4.5 hours you have spent 4.5 hours and have grown and sold a total of 97.65 herbs. The seeds cost a total of 375,000, and you sold them for 683,550gp, leaving a profit of 308,550. You can hit all 5 plots in 6 or 7 minutes as well, so power farming them only really takes 18 minutes of in game time for these results.

Power farming lowers your ROI, but increases your profits.

Not to hijack your guide, but please check out mine for getting easy-to-get farmer payments for trees and fruit trees.

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=631281

(I find the Ape Atoll method is far superior to any other way to get lots of bananas. Though, as you mentioned, this requires completing several quests.)

Nice guide gree. I actually agree a bit with paying for some of the low trees. There is no reason not to pay for some of the actually. Might be interesting tocombine the two guides and call it something like: "To Pay, or Not to Pay, that is the Farmer's Question!"

Nice guide gree. I actually agree a bit with paying for some of the low trees. There is no reason not to pay for some of the actually. Might be interesting tocombine the two guides and call it something like: "To Pay, or Not to Pay, that is the Farmer's Question!"

Lol :) most people immediately jump on those high level trees and simply waste their time/money. (That's like lvling construction 52-60 on mahogany logs... doesn't make much sense considering the cost.)

For higher level farmers, the best trees are always in demand, however, for most people only leveling farming from say 50-65 or even 75, the lesser trees and fruit trees are definitely workable.

No prob Gree. I think our guides are actually pretty complementary. I think that the trees in your guide with relatively east to obtain ingredients should actually be paid for. It mekes perfect economic sence to pay for a tree when payment is apples that can be obtained in mass quantities from the RFD chest.

I see your point...I may have to alter some of my farming methods after this. Nice guide.

Good guide but your magic seed price should be 175-190k so I'm afraid you'll have to calculate that one again. Same goes for coconuts, they are around 2kea, if you find a lucky buyer he might give 3kea but that's really really rare. Never thought about it with the yew trees though, one thing you could add as well, make brews from the yew roots and sell them 10-15kea? Or sell the roots for that price, makes it even cheaper.

Thanks for the update on the price of mage tree seeds there. It seems that they have gone up in the last week or so. A quick check on the forums shows many going for 175k each and roots for 50k. So the actual cost would be around 125k. With these numnbers it is cheaper than a single seed to pay for a mage tree, but still out of the ball park when compared to the cost of paying for all trees.

As for coconuts people are happy to buy them for 3k each, and they sell quickly. It really is a buyers market there. Some people post for 2k, but there is such a small supply they are easy to unload for 3k each (just don't tell your buyers about this guide).

No idea what you are after there with the yew roots though. They make super anti-poisons, not brews.

I always call pots brews, sorry :)

I was going to say that only a guy who solos the DKs would have any interest in super anti poisons (then I saw your sig). At lvl 72, I can solo Rex 10 times a trip, and that is what I use mine for.

As for coconuts people are happy to buy them for 3k each, and they sell quickly. It really is a buyers market there. Some people post for 2k, but there is such a small supply they are easy to unload for 3k each (just don't tell your buyers about this guide).

I have almost never seen coconuts go for over 2k each on forums, whether buying or selling. In addition, I've found there to be plenty of sellers available at a given time to meet the demand. They're actually rather difficult to sell- I usually sell once I have accumulated 500 or so, and even then that takes a few days (checking forums once or twice a day) before I find a buyer. In fact, some people try to buy for as low as 1,500 each, although I've never sold for below 2k myself.

Thanks for the input Lighs. I will lower the guide prices to 2k though because I although I think 3k is a reasonable price, many people have commented that 2k is also feasable.

That bit'o disagreement aside, Even selling or buying them at 1,500gp each, you are far better off not paying for you trees. Here are my calculations for the following values:

Mage seed: 175,000gp

Coconuts: 1,500gp

Even using these numbers you still need to have a death rate higher than 21.5% to lose money. When you add in the 50,000gp selling price of the root, the break even point comes in at exactly 30%, or 3 in 10 trees die.

And if you ever do sell 500 for 1500 each, please let me know. I would be happy to buy them all.