Stardew Valley best crops per season: the highest-profit picks (Year 1 to greenhouse, 1.6 updated)

This is the highest-profit crop guide, by season, current through Stardew Valley 1.6. It assumes you’re a new-ish farmer trying to maximise gold per season — not optimising every variable like a min/max community runner. The top picks below are the ones that pay off without complicated logistics, with a separate section at the bottom for the long-term setups (Ancient Fruit, Starfruit wine) that compound through year 2 and beyond.

TL;DR

Spring 1: Plant Potatoes. Save up for Strawberry Seeds on Spring 13 (Egg Festival).
Summer 1: Plant Blueberries. Add Starfruit if you can afford the 400g seeds.
Fall 1: Plant Cranberries. Pumpkins as a secondary if you want Giant Crop chances.
Winter 1: Plant Powdermelons (new in 1.6 — the first outdoor winter crop ever).
Greenhouse: Ancient Fruit, then process the harvests through kegs into wine.

The rest of the page explains why each pick wins its season and what to do with the harvest.

Spring crops

Spring is your starting season. You won’t have much capital, but you also don’t need much — the season has two genuinely strong picks.

Potatoes (Spring 1)

Potatoes are the best Spring-1 buy. They cost 50g per seed, grow in 6 days, and have a 20% chance to yield extra potatoes per harvest. With the Tiller profession at Farming level 5 (Spring Year 1), each potato sells for 96g. Net profit per seed is comfortably in the 40g+ range, and the 6-day growth means you can chain three full Spring potato cycles if you plant on Spring 1.

The reason Potatoes beat Parsnips, Cauliflower, Kale, and Green Beans for Spring 1: capital efficiency. Cauliflowers sell for more per unit but take 12 days, so you only get one harvest. Parsnips are too cheap to scale. Potatoes are the Goldilocks pick.

Strawberries (Spring 13 onwards)

This is the king Spring crop, but only if you plant immediately after the Egg Festival on Spring 13. Strawberry Seeds aren’t sold at Pierre’s — you can only buy them at the festival. The math:

Seed cost: 100g
Growth time: 8 days, then regrows every 4 days
Plant Spring 13 (evening of the Egg Festival): first harvest Spring 21, second harvest Spring 25
Two harvests at 120g each = 240g per seed, 140g profit per seed

If you plant Spring 14 or later, you only get one harvest (Spring 22) and the math is much worse. Skip the festival’s other distractions, grab as many seeds as your gold supports, and plant the evening you buy them.

Spring 1.6 addition: Carrots are new in 1.6, grow in 3 days, and are forageable from Spring trees. They’re useful for hitting Pickled Carrot (168g via Preserves Jar with the Artisan profession) but not high enough yield to displace Potatoes or Strawberries as your primary crop. Worth processing if you find them; not worth dedicating field space to.

Summer crops

Summer is where the gold curve actually bends upward. Two crops dominate, and which one you pick depends on whether you’re playing Year 1 or Year 2+.

Blueberries (Year 1 priority)

Blueberries are the best regrowing crop in Year 1. They cost 80g, grow in 13 days, then regrow every 4 days yielding 3 berries per harvest. If you plant on Summer 1, you get the initial harvest on Summer 14, then regrows on Summer 18, 22, 26 — four total harvests before Summer 28 ends. With 3 berries per harvest at 50g each (75g with Tiller), the math is:

4 harvests × 3 berries × 75g = 900g per seed across the season
80g seed cost → 820g profit per seed

Plant 100 Blueberry seeds on Summer 1 and you’re looking at over 80,000g across the season from one crop. That’s the bankroll for Year 2’s investments.

Starfruit (Year 2+ priority)

Starfruit is the highest g/day raw-sell crop in the game once you can afford the seeds. Each seed costs 400g (from the Oasis in Calico Desert, unlocked in Summer Year 1), grows in 13 days, and sells for ~750g per fruit at the Tiller-bonus price.

One harvest per seed
Net profit ~350g per seed
~26-27g per day (better than Blueberries’ raw g/day if you only count non-regrow yield)

The reason Starfruit takes Year 2 priority over Blueberries is the keg pipeline (covered below). For Year 1, focus Blueberries; for Year 2+, dedicate a portion of summer to Starfruit specifically for wine processing.

Summer 1.6 addition: Summer Squash grows in 8 days, then regrows every 4 days. The economics aren’t as strong as Blueberries — lower per-unit value — but Squash’s regrowing pattern means it’s a reliable secondary if you want to diversify or you’ve already bought all the Blueberry seeds you can afford.

Fall crops

Fall has the broadest set of strong picks but the clear winner depends on whether you’re optimising for raw gold or for Giant Crop chances.

Cranberries (best raw profit)

Cranberries are the Fall equivalent of Blueberries — the dominant regrowing crop. They cost 240g, grow in 7 days, then regrow every 5 days yielding 2 cranberries per harvest. With the 90g-per-berry Tiller price:

Plant Fall 1: harvests on Fall 8, 13, 18, 23, 28 = 5 harvests
5 × 2 × 90g = 900g per seed across the season
240g seed cost → 660g profit per seed

The slightly lower margin than Summer Blueberries is offset by the fact that Fall is when Pumpkins, Sweet Gem Berries, and Artisan-good processing converge — Cranberries pay your bills while your specialty crops grow.

Pumpkins (Giant Crop strategy)

Pumpkins grow in 13 days at 100g per seed. Their normal sell price (320g) is fine but not exceptional. The reason to grow Pumpkins is the Giant Crop mechanic: any 3×3 grid of fully-grown crops has a daily 1% chance per tile to convert into a single Giant Crop that yields significantly more than the sum of its 9 tiles. Giant Pumpkin yields are particularly generous.

Plant Pumpkins in 3×3 grids (or 6×3, 9×3) with all squares planted to maximise Giant Crop spawn chances. The variance is real — some seasons you get zero, some seasons you get three — but the expected value lifts Pumpkins above their raw sell price.

Fall 1.6 addition: Broccoli is new in 1.6, grows in 8 days, then regrows. It’s competitive with Cranberries in raw g/day, and the Bok Choy/Broccoli Soup recipe makes it useful for energy management. Slot Broccoli in as a tertiary option if Cranberries fill your main fields.

Winter crops

Winter has historically been the “no outdoor crops” season — you mine, you forage, you live off greenhouse output. Stardew 1.6 changed that with the introduction of Powdermelon.

Powdermelons (new in 1.6 — the first outdoor winter crop)

Powdermelon Seeds are obtainable from Winter foraging, the Travelling Cart, and (in 1.6+) Pierre’s Winter offerings in some saves. They grow in 7 days outdoors during Winter and yield 1 Powdermelon per harvest at 100g sell price.

The economics aren’t dramatic — 100g per seed minus seed cost — but the strategic value is huge: Winter outdoor land is finally productive. Process Powdermelons through Preserves Jars for jelly, or through Kegs for wine, and the Artisan-good price climbs to 230g per Powdermelon Wine. With the Artisan profession that becomes 322g.

The bigger win: Winter farming used to be a “rest season” where your fields sat fallow. Powdermelons turn that fallow time into a steady supplementary income line. Year-round farming is now a viable strategy.

Greenhouse and long-term setups

Once you reach the greenhouse (Community Center completion), the calculus changes entirely. The greenhouse ignores seasons; what you plant inside grows year-round.

Ancient Fruit (the long-term king)

Ancient Fruit is unambiguously the best greenhouse crop. The numbers:

Grow time: 28 days (only one cycle to fully grow)
After first harvest: regrows every 7 days, forever, year-round
Sell price: 550g per fruit (Tiller: 605g)
Wine price (Artisan): 1155g per bottle

Fill the greenhouse with Ancient Fruit, set up kegs in the cellar to process the harvests into wine, and you have an income engine that runs for the rest of the save’s life. The setup cost (Seed Maker for Ancient Fruit Seeds, plus enough kegs) takes several weeks; the payoff is permanent.

Starfruit + kegs (Year 2+ wine specialisation)

Starfruit Wine (Artisan price 3150g per bottle, aged in casks) is the single highest-margin output in the game. The bottleneck is keg supply and aging time, but the per-bottle return justifies dedicating a portion of summer field space to Starfruit specifically for the wine pipeline.

Common mistakes

Skipping Strawberries. New players often dismiss the Egg Festival as “decoration” and miss the highest-profit Spring purchase. The festival is the most important shopping day of Spring 1.
Planting Blueberries on Summer 2 or later. Every day of delay loses one of the 4 harvests. Have your seeds ready Summer 1.
Buying Pumpkins without a 3×3 grid plan. Pumpkins planted in single rows lose the Giant Crop expected value that justifies them. If you’re not committing to grids, grow more Cranberries.
Letting the greenhouse sit empty. Once unlocked, the greenhouse running Ancient Fruit compounds every week. Even partial fills beat doing nothing.
Ignoring Preserves Jars in Year 1. A few Preserves Jars converting your harvested crops into Pickled-whatever roughly doubles per-unit profit. Build at least 6 by Summer Year 1.

Quick-reference card

When you’re standing in front of Pierre’s seed counter:

Spring 1: Potatoes.
Spring 13 (Egg Festival): Strawberry Seeds. All of them you can afford.
Summer 1: Blueberries (Year 1) or Starfruit (Year 2+).
Fall 1: Cranberries primary, Pumpkins in 3×3 grids if you want Giant Crops.
Winter: Powdermelons outdoors, Ancient Fruit in the greenhouse.
Long-term project: Build kegs in the cellar, fill the greenhouse with Ancient Fruit.

Crop data verified against the Stardew Valley Wiki Crops page and stardewpricedb.com profit-per-day calculations. 1.6 crop details cross-checked against Dexerto’s 1.6 crops guide and Steam community discussions. Last updated 2026-05-28.