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Crops Management (Plant & Harvest with Joe)

In this article you will find:

  • how to control Joe
  • Story
  • what are templates and how to use them
  • what is Energy
  • how to plant and harvest with Joe
  • what are Silver and Gold Star fruits and veggies
  • what is foraging and how to forage with Joe
  • what are Skills and how to increase them

How do I control Joe?

  • double click on an empty area on your farm to make him move.
  • double-click while on the move to make him run faster.
  • if he does not want to go because there are obstacles in the way, try get him there in small increments.
  • if you want him to stay put, just click on his chair next to the Orders Board.
  • if Joe’s sitting on his chair, click on him to make him get up.

When I click on something it says “Joe too far!”

You will have to move him closer and closer, with smaller steps:

Joe does not have your vantage point and you will have to guide him. 🙂

Story

(warning, spoilers ahead, so it’s best to read this when you get stuck or you finish all the new quests)

Joe is a young man from Britain looking to get his Botany/Plant Biology degree from Woodburn University. He needs some first-hand experience with plants and wants to start working right away.

Joe has heard you can constantly make top-notch produce in your farm, despite not having the best soil, according to a map he studied.

If you decide to hire him and develop his skills, you will unlock 2 new activities: crops management and foraging.

Joe will interact with Tyrone from time to time.

Joe has some Seeding and Harvesting Templates from Woodburn University — you can write your plan on a template, and he’ll execute it accordingly. There are a couple of quests to get you used to how Planting Templates work.

A tornado passed really close to the nearby town the night before. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the University’s Library roof was ripped away. Stored in the attic was an invaluable Botanical Atlas. If you can find it or at least pieces of it, the University will forever be grateful. So keep an eye out for pieces of paper scattered around the tornado’s path.

Donating Lumber to rebuild the Library’s roof

The community is still recovering and in this time of need, every contribution helps, so it would be terrific if you could donate some wood for the rebuilding efforts.

Cleaning up

Since your farm was affected as well, please clean it up and remove the branches and other tornado debris.

Finding the Botanical Atlas pages (Botanical Plates)

After you find the first page, and you send Joe to study a course on that corresponding plant, you will unlock the Foraging skill.

A new page will only be revealed if you find the previous one.

Story F.A.Q

Why Can’t I find one Plate?

There is a secret place one plate is hiding. Can you find it? 🙂 Hint: it’s a dark place. If you’re still struggling to find the 4th Botanical Plate, here’s a video of how to get it: https://streamable.com/yzze5

I can’t pick up the trash with Joe

If you’re struggling with moving around with Joe and have a hard time picking up the debris after the tornado, here’s a video of how to do it: https://streamable.com/h9g9t.

Walkthrough of quests after hiring Joe

If you need more help, you can find answers to all quests after hiring Joe by CLICKING HERE.

Crops Management

Crops Management is a new way of easing your farm duties. For every 3 plantings and harvestings you do by yourself, Joe will help with another, so your workload is reduced by 25%.

Do you want to plant 30 of each crop so your Barn inventory doesn’t fall below a certain quantity? NO PROBLEM. He will happily plant them for you, so you don’t have to count or estimate the number of crops you plant.

Best of all, you can save your plans for future use, so you don’t have to create them each time. A field full of diverse crops is literally 3 clicks away.

Crops Management FAQ

What is a Seeding Template?

A Seeding Template is a preprinted paper that you use to instruct Joe what crops he must seed onto your farm. It indicates the variety and quantity of plants for the plots. Harvesting Templates ensure your garden is packed with color and interest.

Seeding Template 100% – will seed all your available plots.

Seeding Template 50% – will seed half your available plots.

What is a Harvesting Template?

A Harvesting Template is a preprinted paper that you use to instruct Joe what crops and trees he should harvest.

Harvesting Template 100% – will harvest all your ripe fruits and veggies.

Harvesting Template 50% – will harvest half of your ripe fruits and veggies. It does not matter the number of plots you have, it will harvest half of whatever is ready.

How do I get Seeding and Harvesting Templates?

Seeding and Harvesting Templates 100% – they are earned each 3 full plantings and harvestings that you do manually. So, if you plant your whole field 3 times, you will get a Seeding Template 100%. If you harvest your whole field 3 times, you will get a Harvesting Template 100%.

They (100% templates) cannot be bought, only earned each time you seed or harvest your whole farm 3 times.

Seeding and Harvesting Templates 50% – Tyrone will get these for you as a deal, once he finds out you need them, for 3 RC each.

How do we calculate what a “full planting or harvesting” is?

Depending on what the size of your farm is, we calculated the average number of plots a player has. We use that as the basis to calculate what a full planting or harvesting is.

Example:

If you have 1000 plots and the average is 970, you will have to plant or harvest 1000.

If you have 900 plots and the average is 970, you will have to plant or harvest 970.

Why should I use Harvesting Templates?

Using Harvesting Templates is the only way to find Silver and Gold Star Crops and Fruits, because only Joe knows how to differentiate between them. First you have to send him to study quality crops, of course. 🙂

What are Silver / Gold Star Crops and Fruits?

They are premium quality fruits and veggies that you produce in your farm. They are only available through Joe.

They are priced significantly higher than normal Crops and Fruits.

Starred crops appear in your Barn with a small silver or gold star over the icon.

What do I do with Silver / Gold Star Crops and Fruits?

When you are able to make this kind of produce, a new Order location will be unlocked, called Le Cuizin (Fancy Restaurant). You will first have to talk to it’s extremely talented but temperamental Chef, Jerome. Then, to win his trust, you will have to produce an order in a certain amount of time.

If you don’t ship the Order to the Fancy Restaurant in time you will fail the task, and will have to wait for another day to become a Silver or Gold Star Supplier.

Once you win Jerome’s trust for each type of premium produce, you will receive orders more often from him (commanding a premium over normal orders), but all will be time-based (beta/coming soon).

Why should I use Seeding Templates?

Using Seeding Templates takes some workload off your shoulders, especially when you want to plant lots of different veggies to have for Orders, for example.

It gets even easier when you save your plans for future use! Click on the right button above Joe, select one of your saved plans, then click Seed – that’s it!

A seeding plan is what you “write” on a template to instruct Joe what to plant.

A harvesting plan comes pre-filled with whatever you have ready in your farm, so you only need to click the harvest button.

What if I want to harvest only a certain plant?

Simple – just type “0” (zero) in the other quantities in the pre-filled plan.

What is Energy?

Joe, like any human, needs energy to perform actions.

  • Planting, Harvesting 100% – 40 Energy
  • Planting, Harvesting 50% – 26 Energy
  • Picking up a mushroom, nettle – 2 Energy
  • Picking up debris depending on weight – 2-20 Energy

How do I get more Energy?

Energy is automatically restored, at the rate of 1 Energy / 1 minute up to a maximum of 60.

If you need more, however, you can purchase some Energy Bars or carbohydrate Energy Gels. These provide lots of energy without making Joe full.

You can also click on the Energy bar at the top and feed Joe for more energy.

How do I plant with Joe?

You can watch this video (https://streamable.com/08h66) on how to plant with Joe or follow the steps below.

First, hover with your Mouse cursor over Joe until you see this menu appear above his head. Next, click on the icon to the right:

When the Crops Management menu pops, click on “Plant” under “Seeding”:

Next, select the template you want to use. In this example we chose the Seeding Template 50%:

After the Seeding Template 50% menu opens up, if you want to save this plan for future use, you can give it a name, then save it:


We named this one “Tomatoes and Clover”. Once you give it a new name, click “Save”:

Now, let’s click on the “Add Seed” button:

Select the crop you want Joe to plant:

Then it will appear in the Seeding Template menu:

Click inside the box to enter the amount:

Enter the amount you want Joe to plant:

IMPORTANT: if you’re in full-screen mode, be sure to go to Settings and have “Fullscreen keyboard controls” checked, otherwise you won’t be able to type!!!

Now, back to Joe’s plans, we enter “44”.

Then click on “Add Seed” to its right if you want to add another Seed for Joe to plant:

Choose another seed:

Enter an amount for it as well and if you’re done, hit the “Save” button:

At the lower left you will see the cost of the Seeds Joe will plant. For 44 Tomatoes and 86 Clover, that’s 2,170 coins. Hit “Plant” when you’re ready to unleash Joe:

And Joe will start planting!

Why can’t I enter 2 or 3 digits for the crops?

Make sure you have enough free plots on your farm. In this example, only 8 plots are free for seeding.

So, if you enter 30, for example, the number is adjusted to the maximum number of plots you can plant, which is 8.

Also, you see that if you enter 8, the number of plots that are free for seeding adjusts accordingly, going to 0 (zero).

Foraging

Foraging introduces a whole new dimension to the game, as you will be able to interact with the area around your farm and you will have a new type of activity to do. And not just any activity, but the most ancient of human occupations – foraging for wild plants.

You and Joe make a perfect team when it comes to foraging. You spot the wild plants from your vantage point, and he’ll identify them, verify they’re the right species and they’re ripe for picking, or you’ve spotted them too late.

As you develop Joe’s foraging skills and make him study more plants, you will find more mushrooms and nettles, and a bigger portion of them will turn out to be good.

Of course, some recipes will be available soon to make good use of these delicacies. 🙂

Foraging FAQ

How do I forage for mushrooms and nettles?

Foraging for mushrooms and nettles is very simple:

1. Study the botanical plate for the respective plant first! Otherwise, the mushroom or nettle won’t appear around your farm.

2. Look around your farm for mushrooms and nettles:

3. When you spot one, click on it to make Joe pick it up (first be sure Joe is not too far. If he is, bring him closer by double-clicking):

4. Joe will see if the foraged plants are good or not. If they are, they will be added to your Barn. If not, they will be discarded.

When do wild mushrooms and nettles appear after I study the botanical plates?

They will start to appear the first time you log in that day, every 2 minutes. They will be ripe for the picking for 2 hours, then they will disappear.

Skills

In time, as you harvest more and find more mushrooms and nettles, Joe’s skills will increase. Think of them as levels.

You access Joe’s Skills page by clicking on the left button.

Harvesting Skill

When Joe’s Harvesting skill increases, he will have to harvest fewer trees or seeds to get a starred (silver or gold) product.

Foraging Skill

When Joe’s Foraging skill increases, he will find more mushrooms and nettles, and more of them will be good to keep.

Note: finding 1 nettle doesn’t mean Joe’s “Foraging” skill will increase by 1. It’s only when you reach certain thresholds (find a certain number) that your level increases. Also, higher levels are progressively harder to reach.

This update is the last major one required for the “more land” update, as it includes many of its necessary functions.