Are pumpkins or cranberries better?

[wadethebold]

I always see people use cranberries in fall, so on my year 1 farm I’m working on I was planning on buying cranberries. But I didn’t realize that the money I had wasn’t enough money for 160 cranberries. So I was doing the math and I realized that I could buy 160 pumpkins instead and it would make more money than the amount of cranberries I was able to buy. Am I missing something or did I do the math wrong. ( I used both of their base prices to see how much money they would make and yes I accounted for the other four harvests a cranberry seed gets during fall.)

 

[Magically Clueless]

I won't be able to give you the technical answer you want, but more than one cranberry can be harvested from a crop and it regrows so I think that's why many consider it more profitable. Personally, I prefer cranberries because I really like cranberries and harvesting them is very fun hahaha

 

[Ereo]

At base quality you get:

2 harvests of pumpkins for 2 seeds, so 2*320-50*2=520 G.
5 harvests of cranberries for 1 seed, but cranberries give 2 per harvest, so 75*2*5-60=690.
Plus a 10% chance to get one more per harvest, so that would put it at 765.

 

[wadethebold]

 

[wadethebold]

I won't be able to give you the technical answer you want, but more than one cranberry can be harvested from a crop and it regrows so I think that's why many consider it more profitable. Personally, I prefer cranberries because I really like cranberries and harvesting them is very fun hahaha

Yeah, the cranberry and blueberry crops are pretty satisfying to harvest lol.

 

[imnvs]

2 harvests of pumpkins for 2 seeds, so 2*320-50*2=520 G.

Ugh... no speed-gro involved? I can get 3 harvests of pumpkins easy. Crops that regrow instead of replanting are less valuable when you focus on quantity (for processing) than quality (which only matters if you're not processing). Plants that regrow have a set schedule. Plants that are replanted can have every harvest speed influenced by the speed gro.

 

[wadethebold]

Ugh... no speed-gro involved? I can get 3 harvests of pumpkins easy. Crops that regrow instead of replanting are less valuable when you focus on quantity (for processing) than quality (which only matters if you're not processing). Plants that regrow have a set schedule. Plants that are replanted can have every harvest speed influenced by the speed gro.

Exactly my point, also I fertilized every single one of my 160 pumpkins. It’s really a situational thing but I guess cranberries would be better only looking at base quality.

 

[One More Day]

Setting aside any speed gro or fertilizer considerations, and without processing anything, cranberries are actually marginally better than pumpkins at earning money across the whole season. However, that marginal benefit comes at the cost of, well, the cost, because the upfront investment for cranberries is almost two and a half times that of pumpkins. There's also the added drawback that cranberries require much more maintenance, with a harvest every five days. IMO all that extra cost and extra effort simply do not justify the fractionally better return, so if money is your thing, just stick with the pumpkins

Once you add fertilizer into the equation, pumpkins demolish cranberries, because it boosts the whole harvest of pumpkins, but only half the cranberries - the second berry will always be regular quality.

If you're thinking about processing your crops, cranberries fall apart as a proposition because their low-cost/high-volume strategy needs several times the machine capacity, without providing any meaningful improvement in profits.

TL;DR version - choose pumpkins, because cranberries suck

 

[wadethebold]

Setting aside any speed gro or fertilizer considerations, and without processing anything, cranberries are actually marginally better than pumpkins at earning money across the whole season. However, that marginal benefit comes at the cost of, well, the cost, because the upfront investment for cranberries is almost two and a half times that of pumpkins. There's also the added drawback that cranberries require much more maintenance, with a harvest every five days. IMO all that extra cost and extra effort simply do not justify the fractionally better return, so if money is your thing, just stick with the pumpkins

Once you add fertilizer into the equation, pumpkins demolish cranberries, because it boosts the whole harvest of pumpkins, but only half the cranberries - the second berry will always be regular quality.

If you're thinking about processing your crops, cranberries fall apart as a proposition because their low-cost/high-volume strategy needs several times the machine capacity, without providing any meaningful improvement in profits.

TL;DR version - choose pumpkins, because cranberries suck

Thanks, I guess I made the right choice by buying 160 pumpkins and fertilizing them. :)

 

[Rhiannon]

I like a bit of variety. My main fall crop is pumpkins. On the edges of my planting field, I plant cranberries. That way I get the joy of both!

 

[MogBeoulve]

Personally, I prefer cranberries because I really like cranberries and harvesting them is very fun hahaha

Me too, love the pop-pop-pop-pop harvesting noise.

 

[Elenna101]

Also, it's a lot easier to jar or keg all your pumpkins than it is to jar/keg all your cranberries, because you get less pumpkins than you get cranberries. And because jars and kegs increase the sell price by over double the base price, you want to process as many as you can.

 

[SnoozlyKitsune]

I can neither give you a technical answer nor the basic math but I'm a strawberry, blueberry, and cranberry (and basically, any crop that regrows) fan. I have a love and hate relationship with farming so planting crops that regrow works for me best... Plant them on the first day of the season, build junimo huts, install sprinklers, put scarecrows and voila, you can forget about them for the rest of the season. And you know, you can then spend your time on other things like fishing, mining, foraging, gossiping and flirting with the locals.

For me, there's just too much work involved with crops that need to be replanted every nth day.

 

[wadethebold]

They both have their pros and cons, I think it depends on how far you are into the game and what you like more

 

[FilthyGorilla]

The easiest way to look at it is that cranberries are only better as long as you do absolutely nothing to them.

No kegging
No jarring
No fertilizer that changes growth or quality besides regular speed gro and no agriculturist

If you do any of those pumpkins are the pumpkings

 

[chaskuchar]

i do the processing on both pumpkins and melons. melons have a better price than pumpkins on the keg. cranberries are harder to process.