Sunflower

The Sunflower is a flower crop that grows from Sunflower Seeds after 8 days. It can be planted in both Summer and Fall, and it behaves the same in either season. If a Sunflower is still in the ground on Summer 28, it will continue growing on Fall 1 as though nothing had changed, and any fertilizer under it will remain in place.

Sunflowers grow through four stages before harvest: 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, and 2 days for a total of 8 days. When harvested, a Sunflower always yields 1 Sunflower and also drops 0–2 Sunflower Seeds. The seed drop is evenly distributed among 0, 1, or 2 seeds, so the average number of seeds returned is 1 per harvest. Because of that, Sunflowers can partially sustain themselves if you keep replanting the seeds they produce.

Sunflowers have several practical uses beyond direct sale:

• They are used in a Community Center bundle.
• They are one of the options for another bundle.
• They can be placed within 5 squares of a Bee House in any cardinal direction to make the Honey produced more profitable.
• They can be processed in a Seed Maker before making oil, which is more profitable than putting the harvested Sunflower directly into an Oil Maker. A Sunflower processed this way yields, on average, 2 seeds, which means about 2 oil from one crop instead of only 1.
• They are used in the Sewing Machine with Cloth to create a dyeable clothing item, and they also act as a yellow dye ingredient.
• They can be placed in the yellow dye pot at Emily and Haley’s house for dyeing.

When processed into Oil, the game does not count Oil as an Artisan Good, so the Artisan Profession does not improve its value. Sunflowers also give only 5 XP on harvest instead of 14 XP, since the game uses the value of the seeds rather than the flowers themselves when calculating crop harvest experience.

In practice, Sunflowers are most useful as a multi-purpose crop: they can be planted in two seasons, help support Bee Houses, provide dye and tailoring materials, and can be turned into a steady supply of seeds and oil if handled through the Seed Maker first.