Does fertilizer really help make great crops?

The first mainline Harvest Moon game developed by Natsume. Nintendo 3DS. [ Game Guide ] JP release = None. NA release = Nov 2014. EU release = Jun 2015.
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Murasaki
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Can anyone verify this?
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Murasaki wrote:Can anyone verify this?

It does seem to help, but getting great crops seems very RNG heavy. I had a patch of 20 fodder corn in summer; fertilized ONCE due to a storm, had ANOTHER storm the following day (gwah), tons and tons of rain, only watered them every other day...all but 2 plants were producing the great variety by mid-month. Which actually was useless for the feed I was making, so I hoe'd them down XD. I seriously neglected that corn, but it decided to be great anyway.

If a plant uses a "flavored" fertilizer to mutate, using that on it to produce greats seems to help a lot.

The way it works is that each plant has a health level, and the higher the health level the better chance it has to mutate (great variety is considered a mutation). So fertilizing certainly doesn't hurt. But you'll NEVER get a great variety if you don't plant the seeds within their desired elevation range and soil type, no matter how much you fertilize it. Some crops seem really picky about producing greats as well--I believe that one of the potato varieties (titans?) just simply will not produce greats. Or at least in my extensive testing I've never managed to get one.
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Murasaki
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Thanks! Trying to get great habaneros for Gorgon. Tried regular soil, 2 crops = no greats. Trying swampy soil - 1 crop, no greats. May have to wait Another year...gah.

I know playing SoM, some mutations will just not happen (no levels or soil types there) even planting hundreds of plants. So VERY RNG.

This is the type of thing that makes me quit playing that particular game. The frustration level is makes a video game not Even fun. Only the stubborn pseudo-ocd-ness keeps me going til the next shiny thing.
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Murasaki wrote:Thanks! Trying to get great habaneros for Gorgon. Tried regular soil, 2 crops = no greats. Trying swampy soil - 1 crop, no greats. May have to wait Another year...gah.

I know playing SoM, some mutations will just not happen (no levels or soil types there) even planting hundreds of plants. So VERY RNG.

This is the type of thing that makes me quit playing that particular game. The frustration level is makes a video game not Even fun. Only the stubborn pseudo-ocd-ness keeps me going til the next shiny thing.
Yeah, try dumping some orange compost on them. Using...urgh, yellow sprite guy...also will help. I almost ALWAYS get greats from regrowing crops when I set up the parent plant for mutations, so that's an option too.

Supposedly the lowest success rate in TLV is pearl (JERK) onions at 15%; I don't know if that includes greats in the equation however. I remember purple peppers were a bit tricky to get greats for (also Gorgon request).
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Murasaki
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May be too late now - it's like Fall 26 already. Time flies by SO fast in these games. Oh well, Gorgon can wait til next year.

Pearl onions mutated nicely - one season and done. Got some greats just growing a few of the new seed. All done with Fall mutations though!!

The green pepper family is All annoying. Finally got 50 red pepper. Got enough magic pepper just by growing doggy-fetched seeds to make Sam sell me the seeds, so gave up on bell pepper. Long way from white/gold/purple.

I should stop playing this but there's no new real HM to play at the moment. I'm resisting Japanese version of Trio.

Gotta get all the crops mutated and on the vendor!
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Fertilizer enhances the crops' health rating, which in turn makes it easier for them to mutate (great crops are basically mutations too).
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Murasaki wrote:The green pepper family is All annoying. Finally got 50 red pepper. Got enough magic pepper just by growing doggy-fetched seeds to make Sam sell me the seeds, so gave up on bell pepper. Long way from white/gold/purple.

I should stop playing this but there's no new real HM to play at the moment. I'm resisting Japanese version of Trio.

I never had trouble with green/red/purple, but white and gold...anticipate two years for each of those (unless you plant a TON and are lucky with storms). I never manage to get them all in one year, and storms seem to decimate them, no matter what you do (I wonder if there is a mechanic in this game for walls/fences protecting your crops in a storm. Always meant to try it out, maybe I will). And yeah, I've never had to actually mutate the magic peppers, by the time I get there good ol' doggy has provided for me. The stocking festival gifts are also super helpful.

I actually bought a cheap Jpn 3DS just so I could play 3oT >_<. I like it WAY better than SOS, it makes some vast improvements. There are still challenging goals to complete, but unlike SOS....THEY TELL YOU WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO DO TO UNLOCK STUFF. SOS did some good stuff but the endless grind with no way to know how far you were from the goals is just the WORST. Lots of improvements to the animal system (though you still need to have a ridiculous number of them if you want to harvest all products--I still say it's dumb to have different color variety animals when dyeing the fiber is a thing), though I don't know if I am crazy about the new barns.
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