FarmVille Crop Mastery; Strategy and Tips

Once you hit level 10 in FarmVille, you can unlock the feature "Crop Mastery". Crop Mastery is a 3-tier system which rewards players for harvesting the same crop for a large number of times.

Here is what you get for mastering each tier:

First Tier (star) Crop Mastery: 25 xp and 500 coins
Second Tier Crop Mastery: 75 xp and 1500 coins
Third (final) Tier Crop Mastery: 250 xp and 5000 coins, plus a crop mastery XP bonus.

For all the crops I have mastered the XP and coin rewards seem to be consistent across all three tiers, regardless of the ease or difficulty of mastering said crop.

Also, when you master a crop, the progress bar resets. For example, strawberries require 500 harvests to make it to level 1 and 1,000 harvests for level 2. When you complete level 1, the progress bar goes back to zero, so you will have to harvest 1,000 more strawberries to complete the level 2 mastery.

When you master a crop for all three tiers, each crop now has a chance to become a premium crop, which provide XP when harvested. Premium crops look like fertilized crops without the sparkles:

In the picture above, the soybeans where the mouse cursor is are premium (no sparkles, but big), while the ones at the top of the picture are fertilized (big and sparkling).

Each crop provides a different amount of experience points for being a premium crop. Additionally, each crop has a different chance to be premium. For example, berries (aside from raspberries) have a high tendency to become premium crops, while melons have a very low chance to become premium crops.

Additionally, each crop has a different number of harvests required to master it fully. This number is not really important though, as you will see at the end of the article, the only crops that get a big boost from mastering are berries and peas.

As a general rule, fast growing crops have a high chance to become premium crops but pay little bonus XP (usually 1), while slow growing crops have a low chance to become premium crops but pay up to 8 bonus xp. Here is a list of all the crops and the amount of experience they pay when fully mastered:

Crop Name: Bonus XP

Strawberry: 1 XP
Eggplant: 4 XP
Wheat: 6 XP
Soybeans: 2 XP
Squash: 4 XP
Pumpkin: 1 XP
Artichokes: 8 XP
Rice: 1 XP
Raspberries: 1 XP
Daffodils: 4 XP
Cotton: 6 XP
Bell Peppers: 4 XP
Peppers: 2 XP
Aloe Vera: 1 XP
Pineapples: 4 XP
Red Tulips: 2 XP
Blueberries: 1 XP
Watermelon: 8 XP
Grapes: 2 XP
Tomatoes: 1 XP
Pink Roses: 4 XP
Potatoes: 6 XP
Carrots: 1 XP
Coffee: 1 XP
Corn: 6 XP
Sunflowers: 2 XP
Ghost Chili: 1 XP
Cabbage: 4 XP
Green Tea: 1 XP
Blackberries: 1 XP
Red Wheat: 6 XP
Lavender: 4 XP
Sugar Cane: 1 XP
Peas: 2 XP
Yellow Melon: 8 XP
Onion: 1 XP
Broccoli: 4 XP
Lilies: 2 XP
Asparagus: 1 XP

*Note: The flower numbers are just following the trend - there's no way I could have mastered all the flowers as they just come out. However, the bonus XP for crop mastery so far follows a very simple formula: any crop that grows in less than a day gets 1 XP, crops that take 1 day get 2 bonus XP, 2 days = 4 bonus XP, 3 days = 6 bonus XP, 4 days = 8 bonus XP.


What Crop Mastery Means for the Player

Crop Mastery gives the player extra experience points for harvesting masted crops. However, not all crops get the same bonus.

First of all, the berry family gets a huge boost from Crop Mastery. If you plant a field full of berries, most of the time 30-50% of them will be mastered crops. Combine that with the short growing time on berries, and berries become a lot more lucrative. The only downside is that berries are also the hardest to master fully. For example, the blueberry has to be harvested over 15,000 times to get level 3 mastery. However, crop mastery makes these crops even better for farming.

Secondly, any 16 hour crop immediately becomes less attractive. One day crops (23 hours) all pay 2 bonus XP and only need 7 more hours to grow. Prior to crop mastery, peas are only slightly better than asparagus, but when crop mastery is worked into the equation, Peas are far and away the best crop for money while still providing great experience.

Finally, it appears that crops can be premium AND fertilized, and that the bonuses stack. For example, a fertilized premium berry will give 2 XP when harvested.

In conclusion, if you want to level up quickly, pick a berry (either blueberry or blackberry) to master. Blackberries play very slightly more coins per hour (.25 more), but cost more to plant and need around 10,000 more harvests to master than blueberries. Once you master either one of these berries, they will offer a lot of experience points in return for the time spent growing.

If you want to make money, still plant peas. Once this crop is mastered, it will provide a nice experience points bonus in addition to the highest coins per hour rate in game.

FarmVille Crop Mastery; Strategy and Tips