Taro Tuber

Taro Tuber

Type	Seed
Grows	Taro Root
Season	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley
Growth Time	10 days (7 when irrigated)
Island Trader	Bone Fragment (2)
Sell Price	20g

The Taro Tuber is Ginger Island's own seed, and the only planting in the game bought with bone. Two Bone Fragments at the Island Trader's hut buy one tuber, so an afternoon spent breaking Bone Nodes at the dig site pays for a whole field. What makes the tuber worth having is where it is put rather than what it grows: set down within a few tiles of water it counts as a paddy, comes up three days sooner and never asks for a drop from the watering can. On the island farm it ignores the calendar as well, which is why Taro Root is the easiest of the three tropical crops to produce in quantity. Caroline's Island Ingredients order is the reason most farms ever grow it at that scale.

Growing

Ten days of ordinary watering take the tuber to a harvest. Put the same tuber beside water and the clock drops to seven days with no watering at all.

The irrigation test is a generous one. Any tile roughly three squares from water in any direction qualifies, and the qualifying tiles need not touch one another or sit against the bank. A broad band along a river or around a Farm Pond is therefore all paddy, not just the single row at the water's edge.

Farm layout decides how large a taro field can be. A map built around water carries a great many free paddy tiles, while a dry hill-top plot supports only a small patch beside whatever pond it has. The island farm sits between the sea and a stream, so most of its planting space qualifies without any digging at all.

Season is the other half of the decision. Valley soil holds the plant through Summer only, which leaves the eighteenth as the last day an ordinary sowing finishes and the twenty-first for a paddy row. The island farm grows taro in every season, so a bed there keeps turning over while the mainland freezes.

Lifting the root takes the whole plant with it, so a fresh tuber goes back into the bare tile. Speed-Gro worked into the soil before the shoot appears shortens the wait, and the Agriculturist profession does the same across every tile at once, which is what matters on a field being pushed for volume.

Buying

No counter in Pelican Town stocks the tuber and the Traveling Cart never carries it. Everything starts on the island.

Bartering with the Island Trader is the dependable way in. Ten Golden Walnuts given to the parrot beside the hut open the shop for good, and from then on two Bone Fragments buy a tuber whenever one is wanted. Bone Fragments come off the Skeletons that walk the deeper floors of the Mines, out of the Bone Nodes that appear daily at the island's dig site, and out of artifact spots once Gunther's Fragments of the Past order is finished, so the real cost of a field is mining time.

The island hands tubers out as well. Tiger Slimes drop them in the Tiger Slime Grove and inside the Volcano Dungeon, where Magma Duggies and the common chests on the floors do the same. Cutting weeds in the jungle turns them up, island artifact spots and panning hold them, and a Golden Coconut split open sometimes contains one. A Fish Pond stocked with four Lionfish starts giving them as its produce.

A Taro Root dropped into a Seed Maker comes back as tubers, which is how a field renews itself once the first row has been lifted. For a farm chasing a hundred roots that loop costs less than any amount of bartering.

Uses

Caroline posts the Island Ingredients order on the Special Orders board once the island has opened, and Taro Root is one of the three crops she may name. The order asks for a hundred of them inside four weeks and pays out the Solar Panel recipe along with half the value of everything shipped. It can be taken again afterwards, so a paddy field laid out once keeps earning from it.

A crop that waters itself is exactly what an order of that size needs. A hundred roots off dry ground would mean a hundred tiles watered every morning for ten days, while the same hundred along a water line need nothing between the planting and the picking.

Once harvested the root is an ordinary vegetable, so the usual artisan machines accept it and a Preserves Jar or a Keg lifts what a spare stack is worth before it reaches the bin.

Nobody in the village wants a bag of tubers as a present.

Notes

Walk the shoreline before tilling anything. The band of ground that counts as irrigated reaches further inland than it looks, and a row placed one tile too far back turns a self-sufficient crop into a daily chore.

Keep Bone Fragments instead of shipping them. They buy tubers two for one at the Trader and have few other calls on them.

Grow the order crop on the island farm. Taro there is free of the seasons, so a field can be cut and resown without waiting for Summer to come round again.

All Seeds

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Grows	Season	Pierre
Acorn	Oak Tree	All	-
Amaranth Seeds	Amaranth	Fall	70g
Ancient Seeds	Ancient Fruit	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Apple Sapling	Apple	Fall	4,000g
Apricot Sapling	Apricot	Spring	2,000g
Artichoke Seeds	Artichoke	Fall	30g (Year 2+)
Banana Sapling	Banana	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Bean Starter	Green Bean	Spring	60g
Beet Seeds	Beet	Fall	-
Blue Grass Starter	Blue Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	-
Blueberry Seeds	Blueberry	Summer	80g
Bok Choy Seeds	Bok Choy	Fall	50g
Broccoli Seeds	Broccoli	Fall	-
Cactus Seeds	Cactus Fruit	All	-
Carrot Seeds	Carrot	Spring	-
Cauliflower Seeds	Cauliflower	Spring	80g
Cherry Sapling	Cherry	Spring	3,400g
Coffee Bean	-	Spring; Summer	-
Corn Seeds	Corn	Summer; Fall	150g
Cranberry Seeds	Cranberries	Fall	240g
Eggplant Seeds	Eggplant	Fall	20g
Fairy Seeds	Fairy Rose	Fall	200g
Fall Seeds	Blackberry, Common Mushroom, Hazelnut, or Wild Plum	Fall	-
Fiber Seeds	Fiber	All	-
Garlic Seeds	Garlic	Spring	40g (Year 2+)
Grape Starter	Grape	Fall	60g
Grass Starter	Grass	Spring; Summer; Fall	100g
Hops Starter	Hops	Summer	60g
Jazz Seeds	Blue Jazz	Spring	30g
Kale Seeds	Kale	Spring	70g
Mahogany Seed	Mahogany Tree	All	-
Mango Sapling	Mango	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Maple Seed	Maple Tree	All	-
Melon Seeds	Melon	Summer	80g
Mixed Flower Seeds	Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mixed Seeds	Varies	Spring Summer Fall	-
Mossy Seed	Green Rain Tree	All	-
Mushroom Tree Seed	Mushroom Tree	All	-
Mystic Tree Seed	Mystic Tree	All	-
Orange Sapling	Orange	Summer	4,000g
Parsnip Seeds	Parsnip	Spring	20g
Peach Sapling	Peach	Summer	6,000g
Pepper Seeds	Hot Pepper	Summer	40g
Pine Cone	Pine Tree	All	-
Pineapple Seeds	Pineapple	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Pomegranate Sapling	Pomegranate	Fall	6,000g
Poppy Seeds	Poppy	Summer	100g
Potato Seeds	Potato	Spring	50g
Powdermelon Seeds	Powdermelon	Winter	-
Pumpkin Seeds	Pumpkin	Fall	100g
Qi Bean	Qi Fruit	All	-
Radish Seeds	Radish	Summer	40g
Rare Seed	Sweet Gem Berry	Fall	-
Red Cabbage Seeds	Red Cabbage	Summer	100g (Year 2+)
Rhubarb Seeds	Rhubarb	Spring	-
Rice Shoot	Unmilled Rice	Spring	40g
Spangle Seeds	Summer Spangle	Summer	50g
Spring Seeds	Wild Horseradish, Daffodil,; Leek, or Dandelion	Spring	-
Starfruit Seeds	Starfruit	Summer	-
Strawberry Seeds	Strawberry	Spring	-
Summer Seeds	Grape, Spice Berry,; or Sweet Pea	Summer	-
Summer Squash Seeds	Summer Squash	Summer	-
Sunflower Seeds	Sunflower	Summer; Fall	200g
Taro Tuber	Taro Root	All on Ginger Island; Summer in Stardew Valley	-
Tea Sapling	Tea Leaves	All	-
Tomato Seeds	Tomato	Summer	50g
Tulip Bulb	Tulip	Spring	20g
Wheat Seeds	Wheat	Summer; Fall	10g
Winter Seeds	Crocus, Crystal Fruit,; Snow Yam, or Winter Root	Winter	-
Yam Seeds	Yam	Fall	60g