Best Starter Seeds - Stardew Valley

You just started a new game and you wonder, is planting parsnip, potato or cauliflower better? Which is the best starter seed?

Let's have a look at the data!

Parsnip starter seed

• 4 days harvest
• 3.75 gold per day
• 5 gold quality parsnip are required in the quality crops bundle

Potato starter seed

• 6 days harvest
• 8.33 gold per day

Cauliflower starter seed

• 12 days harvest
• 7.92 gold per day

Which is better?

Clearly, planting potato is the most profitable.

One thing to consider though is that you gain the same amount of farming experience once you harvest a crop, no matter which crop. Which means parsnip is the fastest at leveling up farming since it's super cheap and grows in only 4 days.

Another thing that you might want to consider is that cauliflower's profit per day might be slightly lower than potato (5% or so), but once you have sprinklers that water automatically, the fact that it takes twice longer to grow becomes an advantage.

It means you're spending less time planting, harvesting and selling your crops. Time you can spend doing something else.

What I recommend

When starting out, focus on parsnip. It is the fastest way to level up farming. After a few 4 days rounds you should have gained farming levels and harvested the 5 gold quality parsnips that are required for the bundle.

Next, abandon parsnip and move on to potato. It is the most profitable and will help your wallet the most.

Later in the game when you have sprinklers, abandon potato and move on to cauliflower. It is only 5% less profitable than potato but takes much less maintenance and time is money. You can spend that time doing something else!