[Murasame]

I never thought I would use the word nerf, but I've noticed somthing about harvest results with tree cuttings. I've been gardening since PS2 release, I'd get tree cuttings from Goobue in pashow, plant them, and then do the sapling thing every one does now. I stopped for a while, but I've started again. When would I harvest before my hiatus I would get 1 or 2 tree saplings and nothing else, ever. Now I get junk like "3 chunks of rocksalt", needless to say: wtf. I'm doing absolutely nothing different. Was I just extremely lucky for a long time? Or has this been recently added?

[Caspian]

That is odd. Thats what I used to do back in the day. You're not feeding any crystals right? All I ever got was saplings. Thats certainly strange.

[Cometgreen]

They changed it in the July patch, just as my batch was about ready to harvest, no less. I'm sure, if you check the auction house, prices for cuttings have dropped. They got as low as 50k on Phoenix for a few days.

I've heard that porcelain pots still provide only sapplings, but haven't bothered trying it yet. Given with just how long it takes to harvest cuttings, you'd think SE would leave it alone; but now you might spend two weeks gardening just to end up with 5 sapplings and 638 shell bugs.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Not only is there a possibility of getting Rock Salt from Tree Cuttings, but there's also a chance of harvesting around 3 stacks of Shell Bugs.

The results from my last two harvests, combined:
Pots: 80
Harvests yielding 1 Tree Sapling: 44
Harvests yielding 2 Tree Saplings: 24
Total Tree Saplings: 92
Avg. # Tree Saplings per Cutting: 1.15

My average before this update was 1.5 saplings per cutting. While the patch has decreased the rate at which Saplings are harvested, their relative price compared to cuttings seems to have gone up (at least on Lakshmi). A stack of saplings would usually go for 1.5 times the price of a stack of cuttings. Now, it's more like 3 times as much.

The actual market price of saplings has gone down. There are several possible explanations for why:
1. More gardeners are attempting new recipes using Wildgrass Seeds, and using saplings less often.
2. General deflationary trends are causing the price of saplings to go down.

I haven't studied the profitability of growing stuff with Wildgrass Seeds, so I don't know if it's actually a more profitable alternative. But given the relative prices between Tree Cuttings, Tree Saplings and Elemental Ores, I still think growing Tree Cuttings into Tree Saplings is a worthwhile investment.

I've heard that porcelain pots still provide only sapplings, but haven't bothered trying it yet.

I have 4 characters growing 10 Tree Cuttings at a time. I have seen 1 out of those 4 get all Tree Saplings harvests. But I don't remember if that character is using Porcelain Pots or Bronze Pots. However, I'm pretty sure I have 2 or 3 characters using all Porcelain Pots. So I'm guessing this theory is not true.

[Nakti]

Originally Posted by Cometgreen

I've heard that porcelain pots still provide only sapplings, but haven't bothered trying it yet.

I doubt that using Porcelain Pots will guarantee saplings, but there might be ways to reduce the chances of shell bugs.

My husband used cuttings -> saplings as a way to earn a little extra gil, but when he started getting shell bugs he figured it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Now we're both gardening for our chocos, of course. ^^

Originally Posted by Murasame

Now I get junk like "3 chunks of rocksalt"

Hmm. My husband never got Rock Salt. That's usually a sign of overexposing the cutting to the element that's strong to it. (Cuttings are Light-based I believe.)

[Murasame]

I don't use any crystals on them, I got shell bugs from porcelan pots. The rock salt I got from my brass pot. I guess I'll get rid of it now. I don't know about over-exposing. Do you mean examining it too much on a certain day? I examined the same amount everytime I logged onto that character. I didn't pay attention to the day, since I've never had a harvest like this before.

[Nakti]

Originally Posted by Murasame

I don't use any crystals on them, I got shell bugs from porcelan pots. The rock salt I got from my brass pot. I guess I'll get rid of it now. I don't know about over-exposing. Do you mean examining it too much on a certain day? I examined the same amount everytime I logged onto that character. I didn't pay attention to the day, since I've never had a harvest like this before.

Wouldn't you know it. My husband had another set of tree cuttings growing and got 2 pots of Rock Salt (other 8 pots had many saplings)!

Don't throw out the pots you already have. I don't think one pot will give you better results over others.

Aside from making sure the plants don't die, I think "examining" affects growth minimally. More important is what day you planted the cuttings and what day you harvest.

Light and Dark have always been difficult to deal with in gardening and synthing. If you're getting a LOT of Rock Salt, see if you've planted and/or harvested on Lightsday or Darksday. If you're getting SOME Rock Salt, it's probably just the random factor SE has introduced to cuttings. Just look at your overall production rate of saplings and see whether you're happy with it or not.

[Redx]

I’ve noticed a sharp change in the gardening since the July patch, but I seem to be harvesting 2 saplings from a lot of plants so get roughly the same amount overall.
I use mainly brass pots btw and have had a few rock salts and countless shell bugs

even though the prices have dropped alot (on cuttings and saplings) i can still double me gil by growing saplings and selling them on. The price of ores have gone down a lot as well, but the staffs haven't...

i considered growing element ores but didnt get good results from my first batch .

[Sabaron]

Originally Posted by Nakti

Hmm. My husband never got Rock Salt. That's usually a sign of overexposing the cutting to the element that's strong to it. (Cuttings are Light-based I believe.)

Cuttings are supposedly Ice based according to most database and gardening sites (I've not seen one that declares them light, nor have I timed them or ever given one an Ice crystal).

This is a fast-and-loose observation and not a good experimental result, but I noticed that the cuttings will exhibit slightly different growth rates on occasion. At first, I thought it was the pot when all the one's in Enoki's porcelain pots took longer than his brass pot ones--all of the 5 "longer" ones yielded saplings while the many (but not all) of shorter ones yielded garbage (bugs/salt). However, in Sadower's batch, all of the one's on the west side of his house took longer than the ones on the east side, and exhibited the same predilection for saplings. Sadower's pots are mixed as Enoki's are, but I had a mixture of longer growth Brass and Porcelain. Therefore, one might be able to predict your sapling count when you notice a difference in maturation rate, but I doubt if Porcelain pots have much effect on the whole deal. This is likely a product of the oddity that is the Porcelain Flowerpot market--it has come to a sort of "Lore" state like the fabled Millionaire's Desk, Mandragora Bud, and Elemental Staves (with respect to enhancing crafting ability)--people will assign it any number of beneficial attributes without substantiation especially if they're selling them.

NOTE: [Add] Enoki's plants did not exhibit any "positional" growth preference despite having the same physical arrangement as Sadower's.

[Nakti]

Originally Posted by Sabaron

Cuttings are supposedly Ice based according to most database and gardening sites (I've not seen one that declares them light, nor have I timed them or ever given one an Ice crystal).

This is a fast-and-loose observation and not a good experimental result, but I noticed that the cuttings will exhibit slightly different growth rates on occasion. At first, I thought it was the pot when all the one's in Enoki's porcelain pots took longer than his brass pot ones--all of the 5 "longer" ones yielded saplings while the many (but not all) of shorter ones yielded garbage (bugs/salt). However, in Sadower's batch, all of the one's on the west side of his house took longer than the ones on the east side, and exhibited the same predilection for saplings. Sadower's pots are mixed as Enoki's are, but I had a mixture of longer growth Brass and Porcelain. Therefore, one might be able to predict your sapling count when you notice a difference in maturation rate, but I doubt if Porcelain pots have much effect on the whole deal. This is likely a product of the oddity that is the Porcelain Flowerpot market--it has come to a sort of "Lore" state like the fabled Millionaire's Desk, Mandragora Bud, and Elemental Staves (with respect to enhancing crafting ability)--people will assign it any number of beneficial attributes without substantiation especially if they're selling them.

NOTE: [Add] Enoki's plants did not exhibit any "positional" growth preference despite having the same physical arrangement as Sadower's.

Are you saying that some of the cuttings become harvestable before the others even if you planted them at the same time? How strange!

I look at the crystal harvests of a seed to determine what the element is. For example, grain seeds are fire-based and they never yield Fire Crystals. Since cuttings can produce Ice Crystals, I don't think they would be ice-based. Of course, SE could just break their own "rules" for gardening and do what they want. I just checked somepage.com and saw that Light Crystals were possible from cuttings, too.

Is it possible Tree Cuttings are non-element?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

I've noted that tree cuttings planted on two of my characters consistently were ready for feedings and ready for harvest slightly (half a day to a day) earlier than my other three characters. The only thing in common between those 2 characters that was different from the other 3 was furniture set up. Specifically, the 2 characters which experienced faster growth both had Overwhelming or Powerful elemental energy in the Mog house, while the other 3 only had Faint elemental energy. The character that had Overwhelming energy had furniture set up for overwhelming wind energy. The character that had Powerful energy had furniture set up for powerful dark energy. The 3 characters with Faint energy had faint earth energy.

[Aksannyi]

Gardeing is still a complete enigma to me. I check Pikko Pots regularly, and I try to plant/feed crystals/harvest in the same manner and get completely different results. It's a crapshoot anymore, so much that I really only grow plants when seeds drop from a mob anymore.