The new update for 7 Days to Die, Alpha 20, has just been released, and with it comes a further update when it comes to farming. This new update adds some changes to how farming initially worked. When the player destroys a plant in the previous alpha, it turns back into a seedling. It would continue to grow, and you would be able to return to it, harvesting again and again. With the new update, it gets destroyed when you gather a plant.
You now only have a 50% chance of collecting seeds after destroying the plant and a few crops. I harvested corn and only got 2 and you need five ears of corn to make a corn seed. With the new Alpha 20, that makes that harvest not profitable. You can’t keep harvesting like in the old version. This new Alpha 20 system makes farming pretty useless and obsolete.
I covered this topic on my YouTube channel and after doing some tests with farming, I could see if it was still worth it or not to farm in 7 Days to Die after the Alpha 20 patch.
For my experiment, I have 12 of each harvest, 12 mushrooms, 12 corns, 12 blueberries, and 12 potatoes. The goal is to harvest all of these plants and see how long it would take to replant them and profit from them.
I did two tests on these two batches of farming crops, one without perks and one with maxed-out perks. It’s important to test these with maxed-out perks to see if harvesting is profitable fully.
Farming Without Perks
After farming the first set of crops, the 12 mushrooms, corns, blueberries, and potatoes, I got 24 ears of corn, 4 corn seeds, 9 mushroom spores, 24 mushrooms, 3 blueberry seeds, 24 blueberries, 5 potatoes seeds, and 24 potatoes.
These seem like a lot, but they aren’t enough to go again and harvest. After a bit of crafting with the items I got from farming, I could get 12 seeds back that I could replant when it came to the mushrooms harvest.
I managed to profit 9 mushrooms from the harvest without perks. Corn seeds were not profitable, only returning 8 seeds. The blueberry only produced 7 seeds, which is not enough to plant a new harvest. As for the potatoes, I only got 9 back, an upset from the original 12 potatoes.
Continuing to do this harvesting process without perks would cause the player to continue losing their seeds, making the harvest not worth it.
First Harvest Without Perks Results After Crafting Seeds
| Plant | Seeds | Crops |
|---|---|---|
| Mushroom | 12 | 9 |
| Corn | 8 | 4 |
| Blueberries | 7 | 4 |
| Potatoes | 9 | 4 |
| Total | 36 | 21 |
I tried this test again, and I proceed to harvest another batch of crops with no perks. I had 12 of each harvest to conduct this experiment again, 12 mushrooms, 12 corns, 12 blueberries, and 12 potatoes from earlier.
I managed to get 7 corn, 6 blueberries, 3 potatoes, and only 3 spores this time. The second batch of the harvest was worse than the first one.
After crafting the second harvest batch, I managed to get 10 blueberry seeds, 11 corn seeds, 7 mushroom spores, and 7 potatoes. Based on the second batch of harvest, none of them were profitable. The results were worse than the first batch.
Second Harvest Without Perks Results After Crafting Seeds
| Plant | Seeds | Crops |
|---|---|---|
| Mushroom | 7 | 4 |
| Corn | 11 | 4 |
| Blueberries | 10 | 4 |
| Potatoes | 7 | 4 |
| Total | 35 | 16 |
The first two tests show that harvesting without perks after the Alpha 20 patch makes harvesting not profitable at all. It is important to note that you should not farm without perks if it is avoidable.
Farming With Perks
For the second test, I had 2 batches of crops set up like in the first test. Both batches with 12 mushrooms, 12 corns, 12 blueberries, and 12 potatoes.
This time I was farming with maxed-out perks compared to the previous 2 farming batches that did not have perks equipped. The Fortitude, Living Off The Land, and Farmer perks were equipped.
The farmer perk allows the player to triple the harvest of the crops. After farming with the farmer perk, I was able to get 12 corn seeds, 12 blueberry seeds, 12 spores, and 12 potato seeds. In terms of profit, I got 27 blueberries, 42 corn, 42 mushrooms, and 52 potatoes.
From the 12 seeds, I could profit significantly with the perk equipped. I could also get back the 12 seeds I used for harvesting. With the farming perk equipped, farming the harvests is still profitable.
First Harvest With Perks Results After Crafting Seeds
| Plant | Seeds | Crops |
|---|---|---|
| Mushroom | 12 | 42 |
| Corn | 12 | 42 |
| Blueberries | 12 | 27 |
| Potatoes | 12 | 52 |
| Total | 48 | 163 |
I conducted a second test to confirm if it truly is profitable, and a fresh new batch of 12 mushrooms, 12 corns, 12 blueberries, and 12 potatoes were used for the farming experiment.
Having 12 of each harvest to conduct this experiment, After farming with perks once again, I was able to get once again 12 corn seeds, 12 mushroom spores, 12 blueberry seeds, and 12 potato seeds. I profited 37 mushrooms, 47 blueberries, 32 potatoes, and 47 corn.
Second Harvest With Perks Results After Crafting Seeds
| Plant | Seeds | Crops |
|---|---|---|
| Mushroom | 12 | 37 |
| Corn | 12 | 47 |
| Blueberries | 12 | 47 |
| Potatoes | 12 | 32 |
| Total | 48 | 163 |
These aren’t as much compared to what you would usually get before the Alpha 20 patch, but these results show that farming with perks is still pretty profitable.
You now need a larger farm in Alpha 20 than you did in Alpha 19 to get a similar result from your harvests.
Another downfall of the Alpha 20 patch is that you now have to replant every one of your crops.
Conclusion
Farming in Alpha 20 is more grindy and requires more effort than farming in Alpha 19. Unlike before, where you could keep farming off the same plant, you now need to replant your crops every time to continue farming them. This is one of the critical downfalls of the new Alpha 20 system.
However, with the farmer perk equipped, farming is still a profitable option in the new Alpha 20 system. With these perks equipped, it still makes the farming system of the game good, just more of a grind and it’s not as profitable because some of your crops will need to be turned back into seeds.
It is not advisable to farm and harvest without the farmer perk because the crop would not be profitable.
