Top 7 Best RimWorld Crop To Farm

Get a comprehensive look at the best crops in RimWorld for different situations, including food crops, cash crops, and hydroponics crops!

Crops in RimWorld come in all shapes and sizes and can be grown in a growing zone or a hydroponics basin. Their growth depends on many factors, including fertility, temperature, and light. Moreover, each crop has a different growth period and yield. It is understandable, then, how deciding on the best crop to grow in certain situations can be difficult, especially if you are a newer player.

Key Highlights
  • Crops are an essential resource in the game RimWorld. Crops serve as a raw material for many other materials in the game.
  • Psychoid Leaves is one of the best cash crops. It produces two products: Psychoid Tea and drugs (yayo and flake); both sell well, but yayo sells better.
  • Rice is a great early-game crop. It has a short growing period and a constant food supply, but is labor-intensive.
  • Corn is the best food crop in the later game, has decent health, and a long growing period which means it requires less labor. Labor becomes an essential resource late in the game.
  • Potatoes are the best crop for infertile soil, thriving in desert and tundra biomes. They provide the most chemfuel per pawn work, but have a short shelf life.
  • Cocoa is the best crop for long trips, providing versatility and long shelf life. Its by-product chocolate has recreational effects and minimal addiction risk.
  • Haygrass is best for greenhouses and is the only option early in the game. It’s more efficient than other crops grown in hydroponics systems.
  • Cabbage, from the Vanilla Plants Expanded mod, is the best mod crop in RimWorld. It’s resistant to toxic fallout and has a relatively fast growth rate.

RimWorld Best Crop

Fear not, though, because this guide will give you a comprehensive list of the best crops In Rimworld you can farm right now, regardless of your goals.

Best Cash Crop: Psychoid Leaves

If you want to rake in some dough for your colony quickly, look no further than Psychoid Leaves, our pick for the best cash crop in RimWorld. These are some leaves that tend to be addictive. Psychoid Leaves can produce two items: Psychoid Tea and drugs.

RimWorld Best Crop for Food Cash Hydroponics
Psychoid Leaves

Although Psychoid Tea does not provide nutrition, it has other benefits for your pawns. Like beer, Psychoid Tea can lead to elevated moods, reduced pain, and lowered fatigue. The upside here is that it requires less time and labor to make and does not get your pawns hungover like a bottle of beer would. Additionally, making the tea lets you train cooking for your pawns.

However, Psychoid Leaves are the best cash crop in RimWorld because of their second product: drugs. The two drugs you can make from this crop are yayo and flake, both of which can be quite addictive. Both sell fairly well, although flake sells for less since it is a weaker form of yayo. As such, you will want to concentrate on yayo if you want to make the best of this RimWorld cash crop. Moreover, if you happen to use yayo on your pawns, it can lead to a significant mood boost. This essentially means that they can live in worse conditions without getting all cranky. A little cruel, maybe, but economical!

To protect your RimWorld colony against external threats, go through our list of the 18 Rimworld Best Melee Weapons.

Best Early-Game Food Crop: Rice

Rice is one of the earliest crops you will come across in RimWorld. Incidentally, it is also our pick for the best food crop for the early game and the best hydroponics crop in RimWorld.

Rice is among the few food sources you start the game with. As such, it has a short growing period of 3 days minimum. The express growing times make it suitable for tundra biomes as well. Rice also lends the most significant amount of chemfuel from a single setup.

Therefore, the rice crop ensures a constant food supply for your pawns, making it the best food crop for RimWorld’s early game. Its labor-intensive nature also means that it lets you level up your pawns’ Grower skill much quicker early on. However, this also means that this food crop isn’t the best for mid to late game since your RimWorld pawns may be too busy with other tasks such as base defense or research to engage in consistent harvesting and replating.

RimWorld Best Crop for Food Cash Hydroponics
Rice

Aside from being RimWorld’s best food crop for the early game, rice is also your best bet when using hydroponics. With the ideal conditions that hydroponics provide, growth rates for rice can boost by 230%. It means you can harvest the crop in less than two days. The high turnover rate also means that power loss due to solar flares and eclipses should not be as damaging. Hence, if you plan on using hydroponics, rice is the best crop you can farm in RimWorld.

The major downside is its intense labor cost, so rice is the worst crop for work efficiency. Therefore, you would do well to diversify away from rice as your food crop of choice once you progress in your RimWorld game.

Best Late-Game Food Crop: Corn

As you move on in RimWorld, your best food crop choice should shift towards corn. The crop can grow in average and fertile soil and has decent health. It means that planting conditions will have a more negligible effect on corn than other crops. It does have a longer growing period, but that means you need to expend less labor on it than rice. Since labor becomes a valuable resource later in the game, this work efficiency is a big plus.

Corn
Corn

Aside from being the best food crop in RimWorld’s later game, corn can also net you decent amounts of cash. Each harvest of corn gets you 22 units, each with a market value of 1.1. Therefore, if you plant fields full of corn, the dough quickly adds up.

Conversely, since this food crop takes a much longer time to mature, it is best to diversify and accompany it with other crops. That way, if your corn farm does go awry, you will have a food source to fall back on. The extended growth period is also why we do not recommend corn for tundra biomes.

Make sure to have the best hydroponics system by checking out our guide on RimWorld Hydroponics Layout.

Best Crop for Infertile Soil: Potatoes

Think of potatoes as the strong survivalists of RimWorld’s crops, best for when you do not have the best growing conditions. As such, potatoes thrive in desert environments and tundra biomes. However, they do not respond well to the luxury of rich soil or hydroponics in terms of growth rate. Hydroponics does maximize the nutrition per pawn work for potatoes so that it can be worth a go.

RimWorld Best Crop for Food Cash Hydroponics
Potatoes

Additionally, potatoes provide the most chemfuel per pawn work. They do have short-shelf lives, though. That means you will want to consume them quickly and have a consistent supply available if you’re going to adopt it as the main crop for your RimWorld game.

Best Crop for Long Trips: Cocoa

Sometimes, you need something reliable that you can use in a pinch. That is where cocoa comes in, our pick for the best RimWorld crop for more extended storage periods. Cocoa is a versatile food that can lead to multiple by-products. It is on this list, though, because cocoa and its by-products have very long shelf lives. Therefore, if you prepare for a trip or an extended expedition in RimWorld, the cocoa crop is your best friend.

RimWorld Best Crop for Food Cash Hydroponics
Cocoa

The mention of cocoa would be incomplete without mentioning its most important by-product: chocolate! Though it does not do much for nutrition – filling up only 10% of your pawn’s hunger bar – its real strength lies in its recreational effects. If you are in a situation where you direly need to fill up your pawns’ recreation bars to avoid going over the edge, feed them some chocolate. It spares you the effort of going after other recreational sources, most of which are limited in terms of their availability. Moreover, chocolate possesses a minimal risk of addiction.

Similar Crop Guide: Stardew Valley Best Crops

Best Crop for Greenhouse: Haygrass

Hey, not all the best RimWorld food crops have to be for your pawns, right? Haygrass is explicitly farmed for pets and farm animals. Granted, it is not as nutritious and convenient as simply using nutrient paste. However, it is the only option you will have early on in the game since nutrient paste requires research to unlock. The hay grass crop also distinguishes making the best use of greenhouses in RimWorld. Additionally, it will always remain more efficient in terms of work required than other crops you farm on hydroponics systems.

Haygrass
Haygrass

Best Mod Crop: Cabbage

Stepping outside the confines of the base game, RimWorld also has some fascinating crops to offer in its various mods. One such mod – the Vanilla Plants Expanded mod – features the cabbage crop, which is our pick for the best mod crop in RimWorld. Cabbage does not stand out, particularly concerning its nutrition or yield values. Where it does distinguish itself, however, is in its resistance to toxic fallout.

RimWorld Best Crop for Food Cash Hydroponics
Cabbage

Toxic fallout essentially damages all plants within its radius, eventually causing them to wither out and die. Afterward, you need to clean up the poisonous fallout or wait for it to disappear before you can resume farming on that land. However, the cabbage crop is immune to toxic fallout. It means that it does not die if caught in the radius; instead, it simply stops growing. Once the poisonous fallout has been dealt with, your cabbage can start to grow again from where it left off.

Moreover, since cabbage has a relatively fast growth rate, with a minimum of 6.2 days, it can help maintain food supplies even amid disaster. It is the main reason cabbage is the best out of the other mod crops in RimWorld.

Looking for the best RimWorld mods? Check out our Top 12 best RimWorld mods.

Conclusion

That concludes our guide on the best RimWorld crops that you absolutely need to farm right now, including cash crops, food crops, hydroponic crops, and much more! Let us know if we missed out on any vital crop. Read our RimWorld tips guide to get ahead of the curve while starting the game.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I grow crops in RimWorld?

RimWorld lets you grow crops in either a growing area or a hydroponic basin.

What crops grow best in tundra biomes in RimWorld?

For tundra biomes, go for lower yield but faster-growing crops like rice and potatoes. Crops such as corn may not make it through the entire season. Tundra biomes also benefit from using greenhouses, which can basically be enclosed heated rooms with (preferably rich) soil floors. Getting a tundra with a river can also help you get watermill generators to provide steam a steady energy stream.

What crop is best for chemfuel in RimWorld?

Rice will get you the most chemfuel from a single setup, whereas potatoes provide the greatest chemfuel per pawn work.

What is the best cash crop in RimWorld?

Psychoid Leaves are your best bet for making some quick cash in RimWorld. This is because they can be turned into flake and yayo, both of which sell extremely well.

What is the best food crop in RimWorld?

For the early game, rice is the best food crop. As you progress, however, shift towards corn to get more food for less labor, albeit in a longer length of time.

What is the best hydroponics crop in RimWorld?

Rice benefits most from a hydroponics setup, reaching up to a 230% increase in its growth rate.

Did you find this article helpful?

Thanks! Do share your feedback with us. ⚡

How can we make this post better? Your help would be appreciated. ✍

Get up-to-speed gaming updates delivered right to your inbox.

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy.


Sulaymaan Ahmad is a Senior Writer on eXputer who covers all the latest and greatest games. He has an engineering background and a knack for decimating players in First-Person Shooter games. He also enjoys narrative-driven games with characters he can emotionally invest in. Sulaymaan's love for gaming has been going strong for several years which is evident on his gaming profiles at Steam and PSN. Experience: 3+ Years || Written 150+ Guides || Mainly Covers Strategy Guides on eXputer

Related Articles