Farming

This article has skill training guides: Members

Skill training guides document optimal XP/hour methods to train a skill, as well as alternate passive or less expensive methods.

Farming
Released		11 July 2005 (Update)
Also called		Farm
Members		Yes
Type		Gathering
Statistics
Players with 99		238,820 as of 1 March 2024 - update
Players with 200M XP		848 as of 17 March 2024 - update

Farming is a skill in which players plant seeds and harvest crops. The crops grown range from vegetables, herbs and hops, to wood-bearing trees, cacti, and mushrooms. The harvested items have a wide variety of uses, and are popular for training Herblore and Cooking. Many players sell their harvest for a significant profit. The plants grown in farming patches are accessible only to the player who grew them.

Planted crops grow according to set timings, continuing even after a player logs out. This makes it possible to gain large amounts of experience from little in-game time, especially when growing high-experience crops such as trees. Players can also gain rapid experience by planning farming runs that maximise the number of plants grown at once.

General overview

The first thing any player will do when they begin training this skill is to rake away the weeds from one of the many farming patches found scattered around RuneScape. Once cleared, players have the option of applying compost to the patch, which will decrease the chance of the crop becoming diseased, and will also possibly increase the yield of the crop once it reaches maturity.

A player picking herbs grown from farming.

Compost

Compost can be bought in farming shops, or obtained by placing a total of 15 weeds or various other unwanted vegetables into one of the compost bins. Supercompost, which results in an even higher yield and further lowers chances of disease, is obtained by filling the compost bin with higher level Farming produce such as pineapples, watermelons, calquats, coconuts, and high end herbs. Ultracompost may be made by adding 25 volcanic ashes to a full bin of supercompost or adding two volcanic ashes to a bucket of supercompost. Players can also cast the Fertile Soil spell from the Lunar spellbook at any point during the plant's growth cycle to apply the effects of supercompost.

Obtaining Seeds

Seeds are usually easy to obtain. They can be bought from players and stalls, stolen via Thieving or obtained as drops from an enormous variety of monsters. Any lower or intermediate level seeds are usually very cheap, ranging from 1-20 coins each, while the higher level seeds, such as tree, fruit tree, and especially upper end herb seeds can be costly as they are harder to procure and their usage yield high Experience and/or valuable harvested items.

Growth and Disease

After growing for a preset period of time crops will mature and can then be harvested, provided that the crops have not become diseased and died while growing. Once planted, crops grow even if the player is not online, so one can plant a seed and come back at any time. Once the crops are fully grown they will remain in the patch indefinitely until harvested; that is, they will not die once fully matured.

However, during this time crops have a chance to become diseased, and die if left unattended in this stage. While players may wish to check on their crops and cure diseased ones, this can prove a time intensive process. Use of supercompost or ultracompost significantly reduces disease risk. To guarantee plants reaching maturity, players can pay nearby gardeners to watch crops.

Gardeners all charge for their services, but not in coins. The price that they ask depends on the crop that the player asks them to watch. For example, the price for protecting a patch of potatoes is two buckets of compost while the price for protecting a patch of onions is one sack of potatoes. They will also accept your payment-items in noted form. Gardeners cannot be paid to protect herbs or flowers. After completing the Easy Kourend & Kebos Diary, the allotment, flower, and herb patches there will be protected by the local farmer at all times. Players can also unlock two herb patches which are perpetually protected from disease, for free, by completing My Arm's Big Adventure and Making Friends With My Arm.

Farming equipment

Tools

For farming, there are certain tools you will need to use, whether it's using a rake to clear a patch or digging up dead plants with a spade. Below is a table of the basic tools and their uses.

Item		Description
	Rake	Used for getting rid of weeds in a plot.
	Spade	The most useful Farming tool. Used for harvesting crops, clearing away dead plants and removing plant roots and bushes.
	Watering can Gricoller's can	Used for watering plants, which prevents disease during the watered growth cycle. Also used to water tree seedlings. Gricoller's can holds 1000 uses of water instead of 8.
	Seed dibber	Used for planting seeds in a plot.
	Gardening trowel	Used to fill plant pots with soil, as well as planting tree seeds in plant pots to grow saplings.
	Secateurs Magic secateurs	Used for cutting away diseased leaves from trees and bushes. Magic secateurs increase most variable yields when worn or in the inventory.
	Basket	Used for storing up to 5 pieces of fruit (Tomatoes, Strawberries, Oranges, Apples, Bananas).
	Empty sack	Used for storing up to 10 vegetables (Potatoes, Cabbages, Onions).
	Empty plant pot	Most often leftover after planting a sapling in a tree or fruit tree patch; needs to be refilled before use.
	Filled plant pot	Used along with a trowel to plant tree seeds, which, when watered, produce tree saplings that may then be planted in patches.
	Plant cure	Cures a diseased plant (other than trees and bushes).

Most of these tools can be bought in the several Farming shops.

Tool Leprechaun

File:Tool Leprechaun.png

A tool leprechaun.

A tool leprechaun can be found at any farming patch. Their job is to look after the player's farming tools.

Players can store the following:

• 1-100 Rake
• 1-100 Seed dibber
• 1-100 Spade
• 1-100 Trowel
• 1-100 secateurs or magic secateurs
• 1 watering can (8) or gricoller's can
• 1 Bottomless compost bucket
• 1-1000 plant cures
• 1-1000 buckets
• 1-1000 compost, supercompost and ultracompost

The tool leprechaun will also swap herbs (both grimy and clean) and harvested produce (with some exceptions) into bank notes form by using the unnoted items on the tool leprechaun.

Magic secateurs

File:Magic secateurs detail.png

Magic secateurs are obtained during the quest Fairytale I - Growing Pains. It is the only weapon in game that is capable of damaging Tanglefoot. When equipped or in the inventory, the magic secateurs increase the crop yield of herbs, allotments, grape vines, and hops by 10%, as well as yielding more higher quality herbs from Herbiboars.

They are not considered a weapon when travelling to Entrana, as there is a hops patch on the island. Additionally, because of the stab and slash bonuses, they can be an alternative to the Dramen staff on the island when using Melee.

Farming outfit

File:Farmer's outfit (male) equipped.png

A male player wearing the farmer's outfit.

The Farmer's outfit is an experience-boosting set that grants bonus Farming experience when worn. A Farming level of 34 is required to wear any of the pieces, as pieces of the outfit are purchased from the Tithe Farm shop. The outfit costs a total of 400 points to purchase.

	Item	XP Boost	Cost (in points)	Boost per point (% per point)
	Hat	0.4%	75	0.0053
	Torso	0.8%	150	0.0053
	Legs	0.6%	125	0.0048
	Boots	0.2%	50	0.0040
Sub-total		2%
Set bonus		0.5%
Complete set		2.5 %	400	0.0063

Amulet of nature

File:Amulet of nature detail.png

The untradeable amulet of nature is used to monitor the state of a patch. Players can use it on a patch to bind the amulet to the selected patch. The amulet will remain bound to the same patch even after the plant is harvested or removed.

Players wearing the amulet will receive a message if the plant becomes diseased, finishes growing or dies. The message will be received upon log-in if it occured while the player was logged out. The amulet can also be rubbed to learn the current state of the patch.

Players can only have one amulet of nature at a time, but it can be rubbed and bound to new patches indefinitely.

Other

• The farming cape increases the yield of herb patches by 5%.
• A woodcutting axe is needed to chop down trees, fruit trees, hardwoods, crystal trees and celastrus trees. Regular trees, fruit trees and hardwoods can also be removed by paying 200 to the gardener instead. Redwood trees can only be removed by paying Alexandra 2,000. Calquat trees, spirit trees and Hespori do not need to be chopped down to be removed.
• Any kind of glove is needed to harvest cave nightshade from the belladonna patch.
• An amulet of bounty offers a 25% chance to use one seed instead of the regular three when planting them in allotment patches.
• A fishbowl helmet and diving apparatus can be useful when farming giant seaweed, but are not required.
• Herbs will be harvested directly into an open herb sack.

Seeds

Main article: Seeds

Seeds are items that members use to grow crops with the Farming skill. They are essential in training the Farming skill. There are various ways in retrieving them, for example:

• Pickpocketing Master Farmers.
• Stealing from Seed stalls.
• Monster drops.
• Bird nests obtained during Woodcutting or from bird houses.
• Completing Farming contracts.
• Hunting certain implings, most notably Nature implings.
• Minigame rewards, such as various seeds from Wintertodt Supply crates and Barbarian Assault gambles or grape seeds purchased from Tithe Farm.
• Low level seeds can be bought from Olivia and Amelia.
• Purchasing from other players.
• Picking a vegetable from one of the non-player-owned fields dotted around RuneScape occasionally provides a seed as well.

Disease, payment, compost and watering

See also: Disease (Farming)

File:Plant cure detail.png

When a healthy crop ends a growth cycle, there is a chance it may become diseased. While diseased, the crop stops growing and does not advance to the next stage. Crops do not recover from disease on their own, and die at the end of the diseased cycle if left uncured. Dead crops yield no experience and require use of a spade to dig up their remains before planting another crop in the patch.

Players may treat plants in diseased herb, flower, allotment, bush, hops, tree, fruit tree, hardwood tree, spirit, celastrus, belladonna, cactus, and mushroom patches with plant cure to restore the crop to health. Doing so may let the crop advance to the next growth stage normally upon the end of the cycle, although it is possible that it may become diseased again. For diseased trees and bushes, the player may use secateurs on the plant to trim the diseased branch and restore the crop to health. Alternatively, if a player has access to the Lunar Magic spellbook they may use the Cure Plant spell instead, which is substantially more expensive but may save the player valuable inventory space during a crop run.

Crops grow in real-time, so they may become diseased when a player is offline. In addition, crops that have been cured of disease may become afflicted once again. Crops cannot become diseased in the first growth stage (i.e. immediately after the seed has been planted), and fully grown crops will not become diseased.

An amulet of nature alerts a player to disease occurring in a specific patch if worn, and may also be rubbed to check whether or not a plant is still healthy.

Reducing disease risk

Each crop type has a predetermined probability of becoming diseased each crop window. Treating a farming patch with compost, supercompost or ultracompost before (or immediately after) planting a crop reduces the chance of disease during all growth cycles, rounded down to the nearest 1/128th. Compost reduces disease risk by 50%, supercompost by 80%, and ultracompost by 90%. If an Iasor is planted and alive, disease risk of all crops is reduced by a further 80%, to a minimum chance of 1/128 per growth cycle. The risk of a plant becoming diseased without any treatment varies depending on the crop (and in some cases the specific patch).

Watering allotment, flower, and hops patches with a watering can reduces the risk of disease occurring at the end of that growth cycle. During the next growth cycle, the plant changes from being watered back to normal and has a higher risk for disease once more, unless it is watered again. Only allotment, flower, and hops patches may be watered.

Eliminating disease risk

Planting different flowers or a scarecrow provides protection from disease to a variety of crops in allotment patches once the flower is fully grown, while white lillies protect every type of crop grown in allotment patch.

Allotment, Hops, Bush, Tree, Fruit tree and some special farming patches allow you to eliminate disease risk entirely by paying one of the farmers near the farming patch to watch over it and ensure that it grows to completion. Payment may be noted, but must be in the exact form requested. For instance, a farmer does not accept five apples in lieu of a basket of apples. Visit the page linked below for a list of payments required to protect each seed.

See also: Seeds