Ultimate Ironman Guide/Farming
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Farming is a tricky skill to train, split between collecting various seeds and actually using those seeds over time. Because most ways to get seeds provide a wide range of different seed types, it can be fairly inventory-stressful to actively train Farming with all sorts of seeds. For this reason, many players opt to only keep a few types of seeds, such as desirable herb seeds or high-level tree seeds, and farm them over time while training other skills. Despite the difficulty of training Farming, the skill is quite useful, providing herbs and secondary ingredients for Herblore training, logs for Construction training, and fast travel with Spirit trees.
General information and tips
Tool Leprechauns store Farming tools and exchange harvested items into banknotes. Players are able to note herbs (both grimy and clean), farmable Herblore secondaries, and tradeable tree saplings by using the item on a Tool Leprechaun. Farming tools can be bought from Farming shops, and the closest one to a Tool Leprechaun is in Catherby.
Ultracompost can be made by buying pineapples from charter ships, putting them into a compost bin and using 25 volcanic ashes on a full compost bin containing supercompost. Players can also harvest watermelons or snape grass instead of buying pineapples. Alternatively, with level 20 Herblore one can make compost potion which will turn a regular compost bin into supercompost, and then use volcanic ashes for ultra.
Recommended quests and diaries
- Started Fairytale II - Cure a Queen for access to fairy rings and magic secateurs
- Completion of Bone Voyage for access to volcanic ash to make ultracompost
- Completion of Making Friends with My Arm
- My Arm's Big Adventure unlocks a disease-free patch at Trollheim, and the quest has much lower requirements
- Completion of the easy tasks (or higher) in the Kourend & Kebos Diary for a disease-free Hosidius farming patch
- Completion of the medium tasks (or higher) in the Lumbridge & Draynor Diary for teleports to the Falador farming patch
- Explorer's ring 3 gives unlimited teleports, but the hard tasks have higher requirements
- Completion of the medium tasks in the Ardougne Diary for 3 daily teleports to the Ardougne Farming patch
- Ardougne cloak 3 gives 5 daily teleports, and Ardougne cloak 4 unlimited, but the tasks have much higher requirements
Hespori
At level 65, players can plant Hespori seeds in the west wing of the Farming Guild. When fully grown, it will grow into the Hespori, a demi-boss that can be defeated for its unique rewards and some Farming experience. Hespori seeds can be randomly obtained through Farming, and they are also a common reward from completing Farming contracts.
Most notably, Hespori drops the bottomless compost bucket, which can be filled with up to 10,000 uses of ultracompost. Each bucket of compost added to the bottomless bucket counts as two uses, so 5,000 buckets of compost are required to fill the bottomless bucket to maximum. This item is extremely useful for Ultimate Ironman players, as it saves a lot of time when making ultracompost, and also saves inventory space when doing farm runs. It is therefore recommended to get the bottomless compost bucket as early as possible, however this requires using other Item Retrieval Services for storing items.
Hespori also drops anima seeds every kill, which can be planted in the anima patch. Iasor seed is generally the best one to plant as it decreases the chance of Farming patches becoming diseased. Kronos seed is useful for doing Farming contracts.
Starting off
Levels 1–35: Questing
Early levels can be skipped by completing quests that give Farming experience. The quests listed below give a total of 32,500 Farming experience, which is enough to get level 38. They need to be done in order, as some of the quests have Farming level requirements.
- Recipe for Disaster (Goblin generals subquest) requires Cook's Assistant, Goblin Diplomacy, rewards 1,000 Farming experience
- Fairytale I - Growing Pains requires Lost City, Nature Spirit, rewards 3,500 Farming experience
- Forgettable Tale... requires The Giant Dwarf, Fishing Contest, 17 , 22 , rewards 5,000 Farming experience
- The Garden of Death requires 20 , rewards 10,000 Farming experience
- Garden of Tranquillity requires Creature of Fenkenstrain, 25 , rewards 5,000 Farming experience
- Enlightened Journey requires 20 , 30 , 20 , 36 , rewards 3,000 Farming experience
- My Arm's Big Adventure requires Eadgar's Ruse, The Feud, Jungle Potion, 29 , 10 , rewards 5,000 Farming experience
Levels 34–65: Tithe Farm
The Tithe Farm minigame has a number of useful rewards and it offers fairly decent experience. It is strongly recommended for Ultimate Ironman players to get the rewards at low Farming to get up to level 65. This unlocks medium Farming contracts in the Farming Guild much faster, which allows players to obtain valuable seeds a lot easier. Level 65 is also required for planting Hespori seeds and fighting Hespori for the bottomless compost bucket, which is extremely useful for Farming. The minigame also does not require the player to use any seeds, which can be relatively hard to come by at lower levels.
The most notable reward is the seed box, which can store up to six different types of seeds in a single inventory space. The auto-weed ability is also useful, as this prevents weeds from growing in Farming patches. The herb sack can also be useful in some situations. Herb boxes here can be bought by ironmen and are a good way to get early herbs for training Herblore. The other rewards, such as the farmer's outfit and grape seeds are not worth getting timewise.
While Tithe Farm is one of the fastest methods of gaining Farming experience in real time, it becomes generally inefficient to do once the player has easier access to seeds.
To gain access to the Tithe Farm, players must have level 34 Farming (not boostable). The minigame itself does not require much inventory space or gearing up. Wearing the graceful outfit is recommended due to its energy-saving benefits. With a decent Agility level, players should not run out of run energy when wearing the graceful outfit. Using the Humidify spell from the Lunar spellbook or the Gricoller's can can improve experience rates by cutting down on time lost due to refilling watering cans. The Tool Leprechaun can store the Gricoller's can for future use.
Experience rates depend on the exact training route taken within Tithe Farm, as well as the type of seeds used in the minigame. With golovanova seeds, players can gain up to 25,000–35,000 Farming experience per hour from level 34 to 54 Farming. With bologano seeds, players can gain up to 65,000–80,000 Farming experience per hour from level 54 to 74 Farming. With logavano seeds, players can gain up to 105,000–120,000 Farming experience per hour from level 74 Farming onward.
Levels 65–99: Farming contracts
At level 65, players can start doing Farming contracts to obtain tree seeds and herb seeds. They are an excellent source of all kinds of Farming seeds, and dedicating the time to doing contracts will provide a nice stockpile of herb seeds and tree seeds to be farmed while doing other activities. While easy contracts can be done at level 45, they yield much worse rewards and therefore are not recommended.
This training method requires quite a lot of inventory space for all the different kinds of seeds used in the contracts, so it is recommended to pair training in this method with other skills that do not require much inventory space. A list of some recommended activities to pair with contract Farming is as follows:
- Training Thieving by pickpocketing, such as at Knights of Ardougne
- Training Agility on Rooftop Agility Courses
- Training Prayer at Pest Control
- Training Fishing with Barbarian Fishing, if power-fishing using tick manipulation
- Training Fishing by catching minnows at the Fishing Guild
- Training Mining by power-mining iron rocks or granite rocks
The general strategy with Farming contracts is to have a wide variety of seeds in the inventory and pre-planted crops within the Farming Guild, to allow for fast completion of any requested contract. If given a contract for a crop that is not pre-planted and would take a significant amount of time to grow (such as a yew tree request, if the player has a maple tree pre-planted), it is suggested to ask Guildmaster Jane for an easier contract.
In the guild allotment patches, it is recommended to have snape grass seeds and watermelon seeds planted and ready for harvest at all times, as they are the most likely requests for medium contracts and the only allotment plants requested in hard contracts. Both medium and hard contracts will only request white lily seeds in the flower patch, so those can be pre-planted as well (though flowers grow quickly, so pre-planting generally is not necessary). Whiteberry seeds or poison ivy seeds can be pre-planted in the bush patch, though it is recommended to do any requested bush contract, so as to avoid having to downgrade the contract. Hard contracts will only ever request potato cactus seeds, so those can be safely pre-planted once doing hard contracts. Celastrus seeds and redwood seeds should be pre-planted in their unique patches, and extra seeds can be either kept or discarded depending on player preference.
Inventory space should mostly be taken up by herb seeds, with a focus on higher-level seeds (especially if doing hard contracts). A seed box is highly recommended, as without one there is very little room left in the inventory for harvesting farm produce such as herbs. Once doing hard contracts, it is recommended to only keep palm tree seeds and maple seeds for those respective patches, and skip all other tree and fruit tree contracts. Low-level tree seeds such as willow seeds, acorns, apple tree seeds, banana tree seeds, orange tree seeds, and curry tree seeds can be stored at an Item Retrieval Service, where they can be fetched if necessary.
Once available, the Amulet of nature can be used to keep track of the growth progress of the contract patch, making it easy to complete contracts as soon as they are ready. If runes are not necessary for transportation, runes to cast Resurrect Crops can be kept inside the rune pouch. Being on the Arceuus spellbook also provides easy access to the Harmony Island Teleport spell, for herb runs involving the patch on Harmony Island.
Farming herbs and Herblore secondary ingredients
Farming herbs and their secondary ingredients for Herblore training yields a lot of passive Farming experience. The herb seed of choice will depend on the player's Farming and Herblore levels, as well as what potions they want to make.
Herbs can be easily farmed with many skills and activities that do not require a full inventory, such as Agility, Hunter, Mining, Fishing, and Slayer. Players will need to have a stack of seeds in their inventory or in the seed box and runes (or the Construction cape) for teleportation. Having a looting bag is recommended to save inventory space if Farming multiple types of herbs or if also Farming secondary ingredients.
The exact herb run route will depend on how many herb patches players have unlocked and how easy it is to get to them. An example low-level herb run might start by getting an Ardougne cloak 2, an Explorer's ring 2, and an Ectophial from Perdu in Lumbridge. Then, the herb run would progress through the Falador patch (Explorer's ring), the Port Phasmatys patch (Ectophial), the Catherby patch (Camelot Teleport), the Ardougne patch (Ardougne cloak), and the Hosidius patch (Tithe Farm minigame teleport).
At higher levels, the Portal Chamber, ornate jewellery box, and other player-owned house teleports can make it possible to easily travel to almost every patch from the player's house. With level 99 Construction, the Construction cape's ability to teleport the player directly to their POH can allow for the player to stay on the Arceuus spellbook while doing herb runs, which is useful for the Resurrect Crops spell.
For more information, see Ultimate Ironman Guide/Herblore.
A list of all herb patches can be found below:
Other
Giant Mole
The Giant Mole can be killed for the mole claw and mole skin drops it gives, which can be later turned into bird nests at Wyson the Gardener. These nests often contain high-level tree and herb seeds.
Killing bosses and demi-bosses
High-level tree and fruit tree seeds are dropped by many bosses and demi-bosses, such as Zulrah, Kalphite Queen, demonic gorillas, and lizardman shamans.
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