Why Farming Is Worth Starting Early
Farming gives you a renewable supply of food, potion ingredients, crafting materials, and valuable buffs without repeatedly searching Ashenfall for wild plants. A well-planned farm also earns Farming XP while you mine, explore, fight, or build.
Complete the Growing Pains quest by speaking with the Wise Old Man in Bramblemead Valley to unlock the skill. After that, build a few farming plots near your base and save every seed you find. Seeds come from wild plants, chests, enemy packs, and harvested crops.
Farming is deliberately suited to a background routine. Plant and tend crops, leave them to grow, then return between other activities to harvest and replant. Sleeping advances crops to their next growth stage at the start of a new day, making a farm especially useful when paired with a normal survival and exploration loop.
Build Your First Productive Farm
Start small enough that you can care for every plot, then expand once your water and compost supplies are reliable. You need a spade to clear weeds, seeds to plant, a watering can, and access to water. A compost bin and bucket become important once unlocked.
Use straight rows rather than scattering plots around your base. This saves walking time immediately and prepares your layout for the Humidify spell later.
- Keep plots close to water storage, compost bins, and cooking stations.
- Leave enough space to move through rows without getting stuck on structures.
- Store seeds in a dedicated chest so replanting never interrupts your routine.
- Turn weeds and burned food into compost instead of discarding them.
- Build defenses such as oak palisades if aggressive creatures threaten your crops.
| Farming task | What to use | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Clear plots | Spade | Removes weeds and dead plants before planting |
| Sow crops | Equipped seeds | Starts the crop’s growth cycle |
| Water crops | Watering can or spell | Speeds growth and lowers disease risk |
| Fertilize plots | Compost bucket | Raises yield and improves disease resistance |
| Treat disease | Plant cure or Cleansing Rain | Saves diseased crops from being lost |
| Harvest | Manual harvest or harvesting spell | Provides crops, XP, and possible seed recovery |
Keep the early loop simple: clear, sow, water, fertilize if possible, harvest, and replant. Every part of that cycle contributes to Farming progression, so frequent, healthy harvests matter more than waiting to build an enormous farm.
Match Plots, Water, and Compost
Different crops prefer different farming plots. You can plant a seed in a non-preferred plot, but matching the crop to its intended plot substantially reduces its chance of disease. This is especially important for crops you want to maintain continuously.
| Plot type | Best suited for | Example crops |
|---|---|---|
| Ash Farming Plot | Bramblemead-area crops | Cabbage, potato, flax, wheat, redberries |
| Oak Farming Plot | Gornfell-area crops | Onion, tomato, kwuarm, snapdragon, dwellberries |
| Willow Farming Plot | Fellhollow-area crops | Pumpkin, watermelon, irit, avantoe, corpse cotton |
| Yew Farming Plot | Umbral Sands crops | Desert weed, bunny cactus, pipe cactus, barrel cactus |
Watering does more than keep a crop moving toward harvest. It also reduces disease risk and improves your farm’s consistency. Clean water is the better option when available: it provides a stronger disease reduction than dirty water, while both types improve yield compared with leaving plots unwatered.
Rain catchers collect clean water during rain, while wells provide clean water each day. Build several if you are expanding beyond a handful of plots. A water barrel helps buffer your supply so a dry stretch does not stop your planting schedule.
| Care method | Disease effect | Yield effect | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| No watering | Base disease chance | Normal | Avoid when possible |
| Dirty water | Lower disease chance | 1.15x yield | Early farms near natural water |
| Clean water | Further lower disease chance | 1.15x yield | Regular use after rain catchers or wells |
| Compost | 0.5x disease chance | 1.5x yield | Standard crop routine |
| Super compost | 0.25x disease chance | 1.75x yield | High-level, high-value crops |
Compost is unlocked early and should become part of your normal cycle. Use weeds and burned food first, since both are easy to replace and are less useful than fresh crops, fish, meat, or cooking ingredients. Super compost unlocks later and is best reserved for a mature farm where the extra yield justifies its higher-tier inputs.
Level Farming Efficiently
The fastest sustainable Farming training is not a single crop grind. It is a tight maintenance loop with many active plots, correct plot matching, regular watering, compost, and harvests between your other goals.
At low levels, focus on building a dependable seed stock and learning the care cycle. Planting trees becomes available at Farming level 20, allowing you to establish a useful base-side wood supply. Some bushes and trees, including redberry, dwellberry, cadavaberry, ash, oak, and willow, can be harvested without requiring another seed each time.
| Milestone | Unlock or benefit | Practical impact |
|---|---|---|
| Level 3 | Plant cure | Lets you recover diseased plants |
| Level 6 | Rain catcher | Provides passive clean water during rain |
| Level 10 | Compost bin and bucket | Adds better yields and crop protection |
| Level 15 | Uproot | Harvests nearby mature crops and wild plants |
| Level 20 | Tree farming | Lets you grow trees directly in soil |
| Level 28 | Humidify | Waters a line of plots with clean water |
| Level 32 | Well | Adds a dependable daily clean-water source |
| Level 42 | Iron secateurs | Improves manual crop harvest yield |
| Level 50 | Cleansing Rain | Waters and cures plants in one pass |
| Level 60 | Super compost bin | Unlocks stronger fertilizer benefits |
| Level 99 | Farming Skill Cape | Marks full Farming mastery |
Plan rows around Humidify before you unlock it. A compact 2-by-5 or 3-by-5 grid can let a single cast pass through roughly ten plots, dramatically reducing the time spent watering. Cleansing Rain later adds disease curing to that same efficient pattern.
For harvesting, Uproot and its Harvester upgrade are excellent for speed and collecting mature plants in an area. However, if you want the added harvest yield from iron secateurs, harvest manually while wielding them; their benefit does not apply through the harvesting spell.
Useful Boosts and Long-Term Routines
Farming rewards consistency more than long uninterrupted sessions. Set a repeatable route through your farm whenever you return to base: check water, inspect for disease, refill compost, collect ripe crops, and immediately replant.
Experience boosts can make each action more valuable, particularly during a large harvesting session. Food and potion buffs can stack with one another, but effects within the same category replace each other. In other words, use one suitable food buff and one Farming potion instead of consuming several of each.
The Inspiring Ring of Farming provides a Farming XP increase, while Focused Farming potions improve experience gained from the skill. Knowledgeable Nourishment improves XP across all skills, making it attractive when you plan to switch between Farming and gathering work.
Choose crops based on what your current progression needs:
- Grow basic vegetables and berries when cooking supplies are low.
- Maintain herbs when you need potions or combat preparation.
- Prioritize higher-tier regional crops after unlocking their preferred plot.
- Plant trees near base when logs are the bottleneck for construction or crafting.
- Keep a seed reserve rather than planting every seed you collect.
A productive farm makes food preparation much easier. Food is a major source of healing and survival support in Dragonwilds, so Farming has practical value even when you are not focused on its XP. Growing ingredients at home means less travel, more predictable supplies, and better readiness for difficult exploration or combat.
FAQ
How do I start the farming guide runescape dragonwilds routine?
Complete Growing Pains with the Wise Old Man in Bramblemead Valley. Then build farming plots, clear them with a spade, plant saved seeds, water the crops, and return to harvest and replant.
Should I always use the crop’s preferred plot?
Yes, whenever you can. Crops can grow in other plots, but using their preferred Ash, Oak, Willow, or Yew plot greatly reduces disease risk.
Is clean water worth the effort?
Yes. Clean water gives the same yield increase as dirty water but offers better disease protection. Rain catchers and wells make clean water much easier to maintain.
What is the best way to prevent crop disease?
Use the correct plot, water crops regularly, and apply compost. If a plant becomes diseased, use plant cure or Cleansing Rain after unlocking it.
Should I use Uproot or harvest crops manually?
Use Uproot or Harvester when speed is your priority. Harvest manually with iron secateurs when you want their extra crop-yield benefit.