Farming & Aquaculture
Aktualisiert 2026-08-06
Farming and Aquaculture are the two skills that work while you do something else. You plant a crop in a plot, it ripens in real time in the background, and you come back to harvest it — all without touching your action queue. It's the most relaxed progress in Taro Bay, and free XP if you keep your plots busy.
Plots
A plot is a field (Farming) or a basin (Aquaculture). Each plot is a slot that unlocks at a certain skill level, so you gain more plots as you level up:
| Farming | Unlocks at | Aquaculture | Unlocks at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Field 1 | Level 1 | Basin 1 | Level 1 |
| Field 2 | Level 5 | Basin 2 | Level 5 |
| Field 3 | Level 12 | Basin 3 | Level 12 |
| Field 4 | Level 20 | Basin 4 | Level 20 |
A plot moves through four states: locked (your skill is too low), empty, growing, and ready.
Where you tend them
You don't have to go anywhere special to work a plot. The same plot grid — planting, harvesting and the check-in — is on your home screen (the village overview you land on after logging in) as well as on each plot skill's own page. Both show the identical fields and basins with the identical timers, so a ripe crop can be harvested and replanted straight from the home screen without leaving it. The skill page is still where the extras live: field work and plot expansions.
How growing works
When you plant a crop, its ripening clock starts. Growth happens in real time, in parallel with whatever your diver is actively doing — a plot never competes with your action queue. Two things are worth knowing:
- Ready crops wait forever. There is no decay: once a crop is ripe it stays ripe until you harvest it. Log off for a week and it's still there.
- No auto-replant. Harvesting and replanting are manual — a ripe plot sits empty until you plant it again, so check back and keep them turning.
A crop's XP lands at the moment of harvest — not while it grows. (Field work is the exception: it pays its own XP as it runs, harvest or no harvest.)
Faster ripening
A Farming or Aquaculture speed bonus shortens the ripening clock, just like it speeds up any other skill. A farm hoe in your Dōgubako — the Copper Hoe (+2% Farming) up to the Tamahagane Hoe (+10%) — and a matching food or drink buff both count toward that speed. From level 25 on, a farm crop even needs the matching tier of hoe to plant at all; the crop chooser tells you which. Owning the hoe is enough to clear that gate — it can sit unequipped in your bag; the Dōgubako is only for the speed bonus, never a requirement. See Equipment and Buffs.
Two things to know:
- The speed is locked in at the moment you plant. Equipping a better tool (or letting a buff run out) after planting does not change a crop that is already growing — it applies to your next planting.
- The "Ripens in" times in the tables below are the base times with no bonus. With a tool or buff the real wait is shorter.
Farming crops
| Crop | Level | Ripens in | Yield | XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daikon | 1 | 8 min | 4 | 35 |
| Rice | 6 | 15 min | 4 | 80 |
| Tea | 12 | 25 min | 4 | 130 |
| Asa (Hemp) | 25 | 45 min | 4 | 320 |
| Kōzo (Paper Mulberry) | 28 | 50 min | 4 | 350 |
| Cotton | 40 | 60 min | 4 | 480 |
| Mulberry | 60 | 40 min | 5 | 560 |
| Silkworms | 64 | 60 min | 2 | 650 |
The middle of the ladder is where your cloth comes from: Asa and Cotton are the fibre crops the Weaver spins into yarn for the early diving suits, long before silk is on the table. Kōzo yields mulberry bast — a paper fibre worth stockpiling for crafts still to come.
Mulberry and Silkworms sit near the top now — silk is a late, premium material. Silkworms are the one farming crop with a planting cost: each planting consumes 5 mulberry leaves — so grow your own mulberry first, then feed it to the silkworms for silk cocoons.
Aquaculture crops
| Crop | Level | Ripens in | Yield | XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl Oysters | 1 | 20 min | 1 | 50 |
| Carp | 8 | 35 min | 3 | 100 |
| Oysters | 15 | 50 min | 3 | 180 |
Pearl oyster basins are a steady, hands-off source of pearls — a valuable craft material for the Artisan chain.
Breeding pairs — a gamble for something ornamental
Two aquaculture basins aren't about a steady harvest at all. A Koi Breeding Pair (level 20) and a Tai Breeding Pair (level 38) are stocked the way you feed silkworms: each planting costs a pair of the fish you want to breed — two carp for koi, two tai for the tai basin. What they hand back is a small brood of ordinary offspring — the same haul a plain basin gives, but you spent a pair to stock it, so the net gain is slim. You're trading harvest for a shot at the real prize.
Now and then a breeding pair throws a cross: an ornamental fish no ordinary pond will ever produce — a bright Koi or a golden Kogane Tai. The odds sit on each basin's card under "Rarely yields," and nothing you do to the plot — tending, checking in, expanding — nudges them; those only ever help the normal brood. A ready basin gives no hint whether the cross came through, either: you find out when you harvest.
These ornamental fish are collection goods — sea-treasures for collectors, not ingredients. For now they're something to keep, show off, or trade on the market; a proper home for collections is something for a later tide.
Field work — leveling plots actively
Plots used to level themselves quietly: plant, wait, harvest. You can still play them exactly that way. But Farming and Aquaculture are now actively levelable too, through field work — a set of hands-on actions you run from the skill page, right below the plot grid.
That list is shelved like every other skill's (see Skills & XP): Ready on top, Prepare first below it — which is where a field-work action waits while nothing of yours is growing — and Locked at the bottom. On a phone the chosen action with its Start button sits above the list, so the plot grid, the expansion panel and the field work are each a short scroll apart.
Field work is an ordinary action: it runs in your action queue like any gathering task, and while it runs it does two things at once.
- It speeds your growing plots. Every plot of that skill that is currently growing ripens ×1.25 — a quarter faster — for as long as the action runs. A growing plot shows a small ×1.25 badge while its field work is on.
- It earns XP. Field work is the first way to earn Farming/Aquaculture XP without harvesting. The rate is set well below a diligent harvest run, so it is a helping hand, never a replacement for keeping your plots turning.
You can only start field work when at least one field (or basin) is growing — there is nothing to tend on bare soil. Once it is running, though, it keeps running even if every plot ripens while you are away; you are never punished for the crops finishing.
The field-work ladder climbs with your skill:
| Farming | Level | Aquaculture | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weed the Rows | 1 | Skim the Ponds | 1 |
| Tend the Irrigation | 25 | Mend the Nets | 15 |
| Mulch the Beds | 40 | — | — |
| Graft and Prune | 60 | — | — |
The basins mirror the fields — same idea, watery flavour (you mend nets instead of tending irrigation). Their ladder is shorter for now: a third basin tender is still to come.
The check-in — a quick minute for a faster harvest
Every planting comes with one check-in: a tiny ~10-second minigame you can play once per plot per planting, straight from a growing plot's Check-in button. Win it and your crop ripens sooner.
- It's one of three little games, chosen at random for that planting: pull the weeds, time the watering, or spread fertilizer by hovering over the beds. Basins get the same three with a watery skin — skim the algae, time the feed, scatter the feed.
- Partial success counts. Do half the job and you get half the reward — there is no all-or-nothing.
- The reward is only faster ripening — up to −20% of the crop's total ripening time — and never a penalty. Because it's a slice of the whole growth time, not just what's left, the reward is the same whether you play early or late; there's no rush to catch a crop while it's young. A bad round simply wins less; it can't slow a crop or cost you anything. If your cut is larger than the time still left, the crop just finishes right away — the timer stops at ripe, never goes below.
- Only claiming spends it. Closing the overlay or clicking away submits nothing, so a check-in you back out of stays available for later. Just don't claim until you're happy with the round.
The check-in gives no extra yield and no extra XP — it's purely a way to shorten the wait on a crop you care about.
Expanding your fields and basins
Once you're established you can permanently enlarge your harvests. Two crafts on each skill page build an expansion:
| Expansion | Level | Costs | Yields per stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Field / Basin Expansion I | 40 | 20 cedar planks + 40 nails | +25% harvest |
| Field / Basin Expansion II | 65 | 20 hinoki planks + 60 nails | +25% harvest |
Each is a 12-hour build that produces an expansion charter. Take the charter to the expansion panel on the skill page and press Expand to apply the next stage. Two stages stack to +50% on every harvest.
The bonus is exact over time: fractions of a crop are never lost — they carry over from one harvest to the next until they add up to a whole extra item, so a fully expanded field really does yield a clean 25% (or 50%) more in the long run. The planks and nails come from Carpentry and Smithing, so expanding your farm is a reason to keep a woodworker and a smith busy on the side.
Getting the most from your plots
- Plant something in every unlocked plot before you log off — idle plots are wasted time.
- Longer-ripening crops give more XP per harvest but need you to check back less often; match them to how long you'll be away.
- Browse everything plantable on the Crops page.
See also: Skills & XP and Getting Started.