Sunflower Farming like a Pro!

Acquisitions:
Farm
If you want to invest into Sunflower farming, then the most efficient use is to rent the 10 slot farms
from either Heidel or Calpheon (see vendor locations below). These will cost you 10 Contribution per
farm and you can get as many as you want, provided you dont have one in your inventory when
visiting the vendor.

Seeds
Sunflower Seeds can be acquired via the Marketplace or from the Seed vendor in Calpheon, West of
the farm vendor. I recommend buying from the Marketplace as the vendor cost is around 4.5k.
Note: If you want to skip increasing the quality of your seeds you can purchase High quality or even
Special quality Sunflower seeds for premium price. However if you are a skin flint like me and also
want the farming exp, you can breed them yourself.
Scarecrow & Waterway
These items can be crafted in any Carpentry Workshop by one of your workers, and are cheap to
make. They do take up 1 space each, so if you are using both in 1 Farm, then you are limited to 8
Sunflowers.
Scarecrow = 10 Log + 1 Black Powder
Waterway = 2 Log + 8 Bottled River water + 1 Black Powder
Note: Riverwater can be acquired by purchasing Empty bottles from a material vendor and filling
them in a River.
Fertiliser
There are 3 different types of Fertiliser; Inorganic Fertiliser, Byproduct Fertiliser, Organic
Fertiliser. I would recommend Organic Fertiliser, as its more efficient, but there is no difference in
quality, only amount produced.
Inorganic Fertiliser = Drying (5 x Potato/Sweet Potato/Wheat/Corn/Barley) = 1/5 of Gauge
Byproduct Fertiliser = Shaking ( 3 Inorganic Fertiliser + 2 Leavening agent) = 3/5 of Gauge
Organic Fertiliser = Shaking ( 1 Byproduct Fertiliser + 1 Distilled Water) = 4/5 of Gauge
To apply to your farm, simply stand in the farm grip and right click the Fertiliser in your inventory.
Note: its per farm not per plant. You dont need to fertilise your farm 8 times if you have 8
Sunflowers, however the more you planted, the faster the gauge decreases.
Amount given after the use of 1 Organic Fertiliser

Placement:
Depending on where you want to set up your home town, you want to research the area you place
your farms. For example, if you want to set up in Velia (like me), then its a great place as it has good
farm land and 5 crop workbenches. It can also house up to 7-8 workers, which allows you to utilise
the farm nodes for potatos or meat.
The perfect environment for a farm will take 4 hours to grow a sunflower (3h12min with fertiliser).
In order for a perfect environment, it has to be on open greenland with good water retention. You
can view the water retention on your map (see below). Bare in mind the weather changes
constantly, so dont worry too much, just avoid baron areas.

Planting:
When you start planting your Sunflowers, the optimal method is to have 8 Sunflowers, 1 Scarecrow,
1 Waterway (see pic).

The placement of the Waterway and Scarecrow has no bearing on their use. However the placement
of the Sunflowers can result in frequent tangling.

When planting the sunflowers, provided you keep them one grid box apart, you will reduce the
chance they need pruning.

Farming!
In order to maximise your profits from farming, you want to breed (Not Harvest!) your Sunflowers
until they are all Top Quality Sunflowers for Farm. Therefore you will not see much profit at the
beginning, but be patient!

After they are all Top Quality/Special Sunflower for Farm you can begin to harvest. Be aware, only
harvest the sunflowers you can replace. For example, you have 8 sunflowers planted and are at 100
119% growth. Breed the first Sunflower. On this occasion it only gave you one seed in return,
therefore you will need to breed the second Sunflower also. This time it gives you 3 Seeds! This
allows you to Harvest the next 2 Sunflowers and replace them all. Rinse and Repeat.
Tips!
I also recommend using multiple Alts to Tend/Harvest your farms. While you are Grinding or
Questing the crap out of your Main character, leave one or two Alt characters near your farm. When
you need to Tend/Harvest your farm, you can just switch character and save on that precious travel
time and Energy points.
Premium Beds are amazing for professions, as they give 3 Energy every 3 mins, oppose to the 1
Energy every 3 mins. GET ONE!
Dont let your Crops get to 120% as they yield a far less Harvest (avg 12-15 Flowers). If you do let
them slip to 120%, Breed them first as they do not suffer much of a penalty. Prioritise Harvesting the
100-119% flowers.

Trading
Boxing
The best attribute with Sunflowers is that they stay a constant money maker and do not fluctuate in
value, unlike selling items on the marketplace. In order to trade your Sunflowers, you will need to
Box them via Crop Workbenchs. These can be located in most farm buildings and towns.

Skilled Goblin Workers make the best type of worker for Boxing, as there is no Luck chance when
boxing.
Transport
Transporting your Crates from one City to another adds a Distance Bonus when selling to traders.
For example, from Velia to Calpheon, you get an addition 20% per Crate. This can be increased the
further you travel.
You can transport your Sunflower Crates via 2 methods;
1. Get yourself a Wagon from a Stable master and transport yourself
2. Using the Transport feature in your storage.
There are pros and cons to both. Using the first method capitalises on your profit, but can be
dangerous with Bandits on the roads. Using the Storage Transport function is safer, but means you
miss out on 25-30% of your profit paying for transport. I recommend transporting yourself. Provided
you dont go AFK, bypassing bandits is easy.
Note: Taking Wagons offroad will damage your goods. Bandits are also very dangerous, as they are
high lvl 50s hell bent on destroying your Wagon. They can be identified on your map by their
markers. Bandits will attack anyone carrying Trade Crates! BEWARE!

If you do cross paths, it will be the archers that kill you, so use objects (trees, rocks etc) to break line
of sight, as you can outrun the rest. #FeelsBadMan.

Nodes
To get 100%+ worth of your goods, you will need to connect your Crate Boxing location to the City
you intend to sell to. As an example, my Crates are boxed in Velia, and Traded to Calpheon. It took 7
nodes to connect the cities, which totalled 15 Contribution points (Note: I use 2 of the nodes for
farming and lodging).

If you do not connect the nodes, you will only get 30% of the worth of your Sunflowers, when
trading with the Trade Manager.

Profit Summary
Ok, lets assume for example you are like me and Box your Crates in Velia to Trade to Calpheon. You
are also fearless (kappa), taking the Crates yourself via a Farm Wagon, which can store 21 Crates
(630LT default Limit = 21 x 30LT per Crate).
The average Trade price for 1 Box of Special Sunflowers is around 18k + 20% Travel Bonus;
Farms = 3 Fences x 8 Plants
Growth Time = 3h12m x 24
Harvest = approx 35 Sunflowers x average 12 harvests = 420 Flowers
Box Time = approx 55m x 4/5 = 40-50 Flowers = 4-5 Boxs
Travel Time = approx 10 min
Contribution points = 30 (Farms) + 15 (Link nodes) + 10 (Crop Workbenchs) = 55

19,000 + 20% = 22,800 x 21 = 478,800 per run

134 Sunflowers per hour
4-5 Boxs per hour