Farming

INTRODUCTION
The Farmer trade in LOTRO allows you to grow vegetables and pipe-weed. Vegetables are used by Cooks in various recipes, and pipe-weed lets you blow smoke-rings.

Farming is a little different from the rest of the crafting trades, which makes it rather interesting. Your "crafting facility" is Vegetable/Pipe weed Farmland and although you will find many farms around the Shire and Bree-land, only certain farms are designated as public "crafting" farmland.

This guide describes the basics of farming, lists the locations of farmlands, and tells you what vegetables and pipeweed varieties can be grown and the uses of each one. All this should help you understand the nuances of the Farming trade, and provide information that you will need as you progress in your career.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Like any other profession, you get a set of Farmer’s Tools as soon as you choose your vocation. You can also get better tools from a Farmhand vendor and metalsmith's can craft even better ones.

Farmlands can be found outside of Michel Delving and Staddle. Superior Farmlands, which are needed to grow Artisan- and Master-level vegetables and pipe-weed, can be found outside of Hobbiton, behind Ted Sandyman’s house. Farmlands show up on the minimap with the anvil icon, which designates crafting facilities, so they should be easy to spot. You can buy seeds, water and fertilizer from Farmhands in those locations.

FARMING BASICS
In LOTRO, farming is a three-step process: 1) plant the seeds, 2) harvest the crop, and 3)process the harvest.

If you bring up your crafting interface - by default it’s the letter T on your keyboard - you will notice that for each type of vegetable or pipe-weed variety, you get three "recipes". The first one lets you plant the seeds on farmland, and the other two let you process your harvest at a workbench.

lanting a field requires water and fertilizer, which you can purchase from a Farmhand. The type and quantity of fertilizer and water required are listed on your recipe.

You harvest your crop by clicking on the plants that appear at your feet after planting the seeds. When harvesting your crop, you get bushels of either "fair" or "poor" produce. Each bushel of "fair" crop yields four vegetables/pipe-weed, which can then be sold or used. Each bushel of "poor" crop yields three seeds, which you can use to start the planting cycle over.

FARMING EXPERIENCE
You gain Farming experience by planting and processing your crops. The number of experience points you get for each activity is listed on the recipe.

There are five levels of experience in Farming:

Tier 1 – Apprentice Farmer
Tier 2 – Journeyman Farmer
Tier 3 – Expert Farmer
Tier 4 – Artisan Farmer
Tier 5 – Master Farmer

As you gain experience, you earn the corresponding titles and graduate from one tier to the next. There are no Farming level-up quests so advancement is automatic as soon as your XP bar fills up.

After earning proficiency at one tier, you automatically learn some recipes at the next tier. You can learn how to grow and process other types of vegetables and pipe-weed by buying the recipes from Farmhands. Continuing to plant and harvest crops at that tier will earn you experience points towards mastery. Just as in proficiency, you cannot start earning mastery points at a tier if you haven’t reached mastery at the previous tier.

The table below shows the Farming experience levels and the number of experience points you need to reach Proficiency and Mastery at each one.

Tier Proficiency XP Needed Mastery XP Needed
Apprentice 200 400
Journeyman 280 560
Expert 360 720
Artisan 440 880
Master 520 1040


FARMING MASTERY

"Critical success" in crafting (sometimes called a "crit") usually means that you have created an item that is far better than the regular everyday variety. In Farming, it means a super abundance of harvest. A regular field usually yields 2-4 bushels of fair and poor crop, whereas a crit will yield about 5-15 bushels. These figures are based on my own closed beta statistics and may differ from your experience but you get the picture.

Also, a regular harvest yields more poor than fair crop, whereas a critical success yields more fair crop. It is important to keep this in mind when trying to propagate seeds like Sweet Lobelia (see section on pipe-weed below). If you want to get more seeds than fruits/vegetables/pipeweed, then do not use Soil of Rivendell or Soil of Lorien.

Every time you plant a field, there is a 5% chance that you will get a crit. In Farming, achieving Mastery allows you to increase your crit chance to 100%. In other words, once you master a tier, you will always get 5-15 bushels of produce each time you use Soil of Rivendell or Soil of Lorien. These special soils can be bought from Novice or Expert Farmhands respectively.

VEGETABLE FARMING

Vegetables are used by Cooks in various recipes. NPC vendors add an interesting twist to the economy because they sell vegetables, too, although this may be subject to future change. You can grow your own vegetables for a fraction of the price at which they sell them so if you are also a Cook, it makes more sense to farm veggies.

Once you reach mastery at the Master level and become a Grandmaster Farmer, you can also grow Blackberries and sell the by-product, Juicy Blackberries, to Scholars who use them to make Violet Dye.

PIPE-WEED FARMING

Ah pipe-weed! At the moment, the only use pipe-weed has in the game is for blowing smoke-rings. But the demand for it seems to grow daily.

You can grow a couple of varieties of pipe-weed at each expertise level. Some are on your recipe book by default; others can be purchased from a Farmhand. Some seeds can be bought from Farmhands, others can only be looted, and still others can only be obtained by cross-breeding.

Pipe-Weed Varieties

Tier Pipe-Weed Variety Recipe Source Seed Source
1 Southlinch Default Novice Farmhand
Longbottom Leaf Default Novice Farmhand
Sweet Lobelia Novice Farmhand Loot
Rushlight Novice Farmhand Loot
2 Southern Star Default Novice Farmhand
Hornblower Novice Farmhand Loot
Muddyfoot Novice Farmhand Cross-breed
Tighfield Choice Novice Farmhand Cross-breed
3 Sweet Galenas Default Novice Farmhand
Old Toby Novice Farmhand Loot
Dragonsbreath Novice Farmhand Cross-breed
Roper's Twist Novice Farmhand Cross-breed
4 Eagle's Nest Expert Farmhand Cross-Breed
Gamwich Braid Expert Farmhand Cross-Breed
5 Wizard's Fire Expert Farmhand Cross-Breed


Sweet Lobelia, Rushlight, Hornblower, and Old Toby seeds can be found all over Middle Earth – in abandoned backpacks, chests, and many other unexpected places. Dedicated farmers are always on the lookout for these seeds so they fetch quite a fair price at the Auction House. If you want to be able to breed the higher varieties of pipe-weed, you will need these seeds, as you can see from the chart below.

Sweet Lobelia seeds can also be obtained as a quest reward from a hungry hobbit outside the Prancing Pony Inn.



CROSS-BREEDING PIPE-WEED

Cross-breeding pipe-weed is a complex but rewarding process.

The first step is to obtain a cross-breeding recipe from a Farmhand. The recipe will show you what kind of seeds you will need to combine to make the new variety, and how much soil and fertilizer you will need.

The second step is to obtain the seeds needed by the cross-breeding recipe. This is probably the hardest part since some of the seeds are not easily obtained. Your best bet is to check the Auction House frequently, or to ask your friends to send you any pipe-weed seeds they find in their travels.

Once you have the seeds, the third step is to plant them. This planting can yield a mix of poor and fair crop of either the original varieties or the cross-bred one. For example, if you are trying to cross-breed Muddyfoot, you can get a mix of Longbottom, Sweet Lobelia, or Muddyfoot fair/poor crop. Naturally, you will be aiming for the Muddyfoot poor crop so you can get seeds to propagate. So you have to prepare yourself for several attempts before you can get enough seeds to plant a Muddyfoot field.

Once you have your 6 cross-bred seeds, the fourth step is to plant them. Again, you will want to propagate these seeds before aiming for the good leaf, so don’t use Soil of Rivendell/Lorien until you think you have enough seeds to keep you going for a while. Everyone has his own comfort level on this, but I would say make sure you have enough for 5 fields before you start going for the fair crop.

THE SIMPLE LIFE

Of all the crafting trades I’ve tried, I’d say Farming is the most addictive. There’s something about tilling the good soil, watching things grow and being able to participate in the idle chat around you while you work, that makes you want to say "just one more field…" when adventure beckons.
This guide was written by Trinity Divine