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Stardew Valley Crop Quality Guide: How to Get Silver, Gold, and Iridium Crops

Crop quality is decided at harvest. Learn how Farming level and fertilizer affect your odds, when each fertilizer can be applied, and why only Deluxe Fertilizer enables iridium crops.
Length3 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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Crop quality is decided when you harvest, not when you plant. Raising Farming level and using fertilizer improve your odds of silver or gold crops; Deluxe Fertilizer is the only fertilizer that makes iridium-quality crops possible. These factors raise probabilities rather than guaranteeing a quality for every crop.

How crop quality is decided

Harvested crops can be regular, silver, gold, or iridium quality. The game determines quality at harvest, so a seed does not lock in its eventual quality. Higher Farming skill and fertilized soil improve the average quality of a harvest.

The Stardew Valley Wiki publishes this formula for the chance of gold quality:

0.2 × (Farming level / 10) + 0.2 × (fertilizer level) × ((Farming level + 2) / 12) + 0.01

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For this calculation, fertilizer level is 0 with no fertilizer, 1 with Basic Fertilizer, 2 with Quality Fertilizer, and 3 with Deluxe Fertilizer. Silver chance is twice the gold chance, capped at 75%. With Deluxe Fertilizer, iridium chance is half the gold chance. The game checks for iridium first, then gold, then silver, so these are not independent probabilities to add together. See the Stardew Valley Wiki’s crop mechanics and its fertilizer probability tables for the published odds.

Which fertilizer to use

Fertilizer Effect on quality Application timing
Basic Fertilizer Improves silver and gold odds; does not allow iridium crops. Apply to tilled soil before the seed sprouts.
Quality Fertilizer Improves silver and gold odds; does not allow iridium crops. Apply to tilled soil before the seed sprouts.
Deluxe Fertilizer Improves silver and gold odds and enables iridium-quality crops. Apply to tilled soil before or after planting, at any growth stage.

Choose based on your target and the crop’s stage: Basic or Quality Fertilizer can improve the odds of silver and gold, while Deluxe is necessary if you want iridium to be in the possible outcomes. The exact odds depend on Farming level and fertilizer level; they are chances, not harvest guarantees. A crop that has already sprouted is too late for Basic or Quality Fertilizer, but Deluxe can still be applied.

How to read the odds

The wiki’s published table illustrates how Farming and fertilizer shift the distribution. With no fertilizer at Farming level 0, it lists 97% regular, 2% silver, and 1% gold. At Farming level 10 with no fertilizer, it lists 46% regular, 33% silver, and 21% gold. At Farming level 10 with Deluxe Fertilizer, the listed distribution is 11% silver, 48% gold, and 41% iridium. These are game probability distributions, not promises about any particular harvest; consult the wiki table for other combinations.

How to get each fertilizer

Basic Fertilizer

Basic Fertilizer is craftable at Farming level 1 using 2 Sap. Pierre sells it starting Spring 15, Year 1.

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Quality Fertilizer

At Farming level 9, you can craft two Quality Fertilizers from 4 Sap and any fish. Pierre sells it in Year 2 for 150g; the Stardew Valley Wiki also lists Bone Mill, Mystery Box, Golden Mystery Box, and Traveling Cart acquisition routes.

Deluxe Fertilizer

Buy the recipe in Qi’s Walnut Room for 20 Qi Gems. Crafting five Deluxe Fertilizers requires 1 Iridium Bar and 40 Sap. These are in-game costs and unlocks.

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What quality changes—and what it does not

  • Higher-quality crops sell for more and provide greater energy and health benefits when eaten.
  • Silver-, gold-, and iridium-quality crops give more friendship points when gifted to an NPC who likes or loves that crop.
  • Crop quality does not increase the health or energy benefits of cooked foods, and it does not set the quality of Artisan Goods.
  • Putting a higher-quality crop into a Seed Maker does not make the resulting seeds more likely to produce higher-quality crops.

Special case: crops that yield several items

For crops that produce multiple items in one harvest, fertilizer affects only the first item. For example, with a harvest of four coffee beans, only one bean benefits from the crop-quality roll; the other three remain regular quality. The same applies to a three-blueberry harvest: only one blueberry is affected. Factor that limit into your choice of fertilizer for multi-yield crops, especially if your goal is to improve the quality of every item you sell or use.

Quick Recap

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