Sprinklers in Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley remains the best and most popular real-life farming simulation game across the web. The main reason is that it offers a lot of nice features that can bring comfort and serenity as you play it just like eating ice cream on a hot day. Do you know what makes Stardew Valley and ice cream more similar? They are better with sprinklers!
As the new farmer in Pelican Town, the first thing that you have to master is the art of growing crops on your farm which you obviously cannot do without water. Initially, you can use a watering can to irrigate each crop one by one. However, this will take a lot of your time especially when you have a lot of tasks to do for the day.
That being said, sprinklers are a thing in Stardew Valley that gives you slack in watering your fruits and vegetables so you will not have to worry about forgetting about your crops early in the morning. Your sprinklers will do the job for you and water the designated crops every morning.
Throughout this guide, we will tell you everything you need to know when it comes to sprinklers in Stardew Valley.
Types of Sprinklers
Looking at other farmers’ farm layouts, you might notice that there are different colors of sprinklers. These are the three types of sprinklers that you can craft in Stardew Valley. They can be distinguished through their colors and the area they can cover.
Regular Sprinkler
The regular sprinkler is the basic one that you get first among the three. It is gray and appears smaller than the other two.
A regular sprinkler can only water the four adjacent tiles to it. This means that the crops positioned on top, left, right, and below the sprinkler will be watered. So when using the regular sprinkler, you have to be very mindful of your layout in order to maximize its use and cover all the crops you want to grow.
Quality Sprinkler
Once you have used your regular sprinkler for a long time, the next type that you can get is the quality sprinkler. It is one quality higher than the basic as it can cover the eight adjacent tiles.
That being said, all the crops enclosing this sprinkler will be able to get watered nicely. Because of this, you can now arrange your crops better since they will require less consideration due to the area they can cover.
Iridium Sprinkler
They said to save the best for last. Now, here is the best quality sprinkler that you can have on your farm.
This purple item that you see in between crops is the iridium sprinkler. It has the most crops covered per sprinkler which makes it the best and most popular. In comparison to the previous sprinkler, which had 8 adjacent tiles, this upgrade can accommodate 24 adjacent tiles.
Upon using this, you can significantly save space and increase the tilled lands to plant your crops as it can reach further tiles.
How to Get a Sprinkler
Naturally, beginner or basic items will be easier to obtain compared to the higher quality ones. But the good thing about sprinklers is that they all have the same process in getting the crafting recipe for each.
To get these, you just have to increase your farming skill level. As you continuously grind your farming skills, you will receive different rewards per level up. In this case, you can get the regular sprinkler recipe by reaching Farming Level 2, the quality sprinkler by reaching Farming Level 6, and the Iridium Sprinkler by reaching Farming Level 9.
How to Increase Farming Level
Your farming skills depend on the experience points you gain by doing particular activities on your farm. These activities pertain to harvesting crops, petting your barn and coop animals, as well as milking, shearing, and collecting your farm animals’ products.
As you do these activities more frequently, you will level up your farming skills easily and will receive the rewards in no time. Another good thing about leveling up your farming skills is that you will gain +1 proficiency in your hoe and watering can. The higher the proficiency, the less energy is required to use the tool.
Crafting Instructions
After you obtain the crafting recipe, the next thing you need to know is to understand the needed materials to successfully make each sprinkler.
The regular sprinkler requires 1x Copper Bar and 1x Iron Bar. Quality sprinkler, on the other hand, needs 1x Iron Bar, 1x Gold Bar, and 1x Refined Quartz. Lastly, the iridium sprinkler requires 1x Gold Bar, 1x Iridium Bar, and 1x Battery Pack.
Sprinkler Upgrades
To make things even better, reaching the late game of the game story will allow you to have access to Qi’s Walnut Room in Ginger Island. Here, you can purchase rare items in exchange for Qi Gems.
Included in the list are two attachments that can significantly upgrade the functionality of sprinklers on your farm. Namely, these two are the Pressure Nozzle and Enricher.
Pressure Nozzle
The pressure nozzle is an attachment that costs 20 Qi Gems from Qi’s Walnut Room. One purchase gives you four nozzles that you can attach to the four ends of your sprinkler to increase its watering range.
You can use these pressure nozzles for all kinds of sprinklers you have. Upon use, a regular sprinkler will be able to cover the corners of its original range; a quality sprinkler will be able to cover 5×5 tiles; while the iridium sprinkler will be able to reach a 7×7 tile coverage.
Enricher
Enricher is the other sprinkler upgrade that you can buy from Qi’s Walnut Room, also, for 20 Qi Gems. Once you attach this, the sprinklers will automatically apply fertilizer to the soil with seeds planted.
The right way to use this is to load enough fertilizer on the enricher first before planting seeds. Plus, you have to consider the range of the sprinkler you are using. If you are using an iridium sprinkler, you have to load 24 fertilizers of the same kind in order to receive the same amount of fertilizer. Also, you can only put the same kind of fertilizer at once.
Pressure Nozzle vs. Enricher
One thing that you have to keep in mind is that the pressure nozzle and enricher cannot be equipped on one sprinkler at the same time. This only means that you have to choose between the two on what upgrade you would use on your farm.
After weighing the two, most players think the pressure nozzle is way better than the enricher. Given that sprinklers automatically water the crops every morning, the pressure nozzle will also work every morning. However, the enricher will only work once you have planted a seed near it. Plus, you have to be mindful whether you have already run out of fertilizers loaded in your enricher, or else, it wouldn’t work.
Another drawback of Enricher is that it only applies fertilizer to the first crop produced for multi-harvest crops. So if you are growing this kind of crop, it would be way more efficient to use the pressure nozzle.
