Farming's as honest as honest work gets. - Blake Abernathy

Here's my view on what to farm, when, depending on your needs and intentions. I am mainly looking at Survival games, but also for when you choose to raise cash crops (in normal games or Survival games), rather than taking the much easier route of "farming" water for caps.

Essentially this guide tries to answer - quantitatively - the question "which crop is best for which purpose?"

TL;DR:

*Tatos - for selling locally
*Corn - for selling elsewhere
*Mutfruit (or Corn) - for Survival player food
*Anything - to feed Settlers

For more general strateghy advice and tips on Survival, see my guide (work in progress):
Survival Guide

If you are concerned about radiation in the food you consume then the food crops in order of the lowest radiation percentage (rads per food value) are:


Mutfruit 2/8 25% (2/12 16%)
Razorgrain* 2/5 40% (2/12 16%) (but not usable as Survival player food)
Tarberry 2/5 40% (2/12 16%) (but only farmable at The Slog)
Corn 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Melon** 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Gourd 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Tato 5/7 ~72% (5/12 ~42%)
Carrot 3/3 100% (3/12 25%)

The second value (within the brackets) is adjusted for hunger tier rounding in the "Peckish" band. Exploiting this rounding effect carries higher disease risk. See section on Survival food value rounding.

The rankings above do NOT consider hunger tier rounding. Taking that into account the rankings are:

Mutfruit 2/8 25% (2/12 16%)
Razorgrain* 2/5 40% (2/12 16%) (but not usable as Survival player food)
Tarberry 2/5 40% (2/12 16%) (but only farmable at The Slog)
Corn 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Melon** 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Gourd 3/6 50% (3/12 25%)
Carrot 3/3 100% (3/12 25%)
Tato 5/7 ~72% (5/12 ~42%)

Only Carrot changes position, when considering rad % alone. When weight is also taken into account, the ranking changes more significantly (see below).

In terms of (player character) food value (which is also equal to monetary value) produced per Settler allocated (with Rad %):

Tato 84 (72%/42%)
Corn, Melon, Gourd 72 (50%/25%)
Razorgrain*, Tarberry 60 (40%/16%)
Mutfruit 48 (25%/16%)
Carrot 36 (100%/25%)

The second value is adjusted for hunger tier rounding in the "Peckish" band.

If radiation is not an issue (eg due to available doctor, Lead Belly perk, Decontamination Arch) this order would be the preference order of best crops for player food needs.


In terms of food value per unit of weight (with Rad %):

Mutfruit 80 (25%/16%)
Corn 60 (50%/25%)
Razorgrain*, Tarberry 50 (40%/16%)
Carrot 30 (100%/25%)
Tato 14 (72%/42%)
Melon**, Gourd 6 (50%/25%)

The second value above is partly adjusted for hunger tier rounding in the "Peckish" band. The rankings above are not adjusted for hunger tier rounding. Fully adjusting for this gives:

-1- Mutfruit 120 (20/120 = 16%)
=2 Corn 120 (30/120=25%)
=2 Carrot 120 (30/120=25%)
=2 Tarberry 120 (30/120=25%) (but only farmable at The Slog)
=2 Razorgrain* 120 (30/120=25%) (but not usable as Survival player food)
=3 Melon** 12 (3/12=25%) (with additional hydration effect)
=3 Gourd 12 (3/12=25%)
-4- Tato 24 (14/24=%)

Corn is ranked higher than Carrot due to double profitability and its use in adhesive production, though carrot also has production uses.

Melon is ranked higher than Gourd due to its hydration effect, though neither are really worth producing except for special situations (Lucy Abernathy, certain soups).


Due to the non-linear way rad reduction works in Lead Belly, these ranking would need to be recomputed for each level of Lead Belly, as the relative ranking would change at each level, apart from the maximum level where all foods have no rads (not even zero rads, no rads listed).


For personal food use (in Survival) while travelling, or as a portable trade good, Mutfruit may be preferable despite being less labour-efficient than Corn, because it has the lowest radiation percentage and the best ratio of weight to food value. But consider Mutfruit to be a somewhat "luxury" food, given the extra effort needed to produce it. Corn is probably the more all-round optimum food (including for profit).


In vanilla Survival, raw Razorgrain cannot be consumed as player food. However Razorgrain can be converted to Noodle Cup, though this requires Dirty Water, which in turn requires a source of empty bottles (and an open water source) to produce in quantity. Nonetheless, conversion of Razorgrain and Dirty Water to Noodle Cup yields 4x the (unavailable) raw food value of the Razorgrain and 4x the hydration value of the Dirty Water, with half of the weight of the inputs, and none of the radiation. This is a rare example of a Fallout 4 food recipe that is more nutritious than the sum of its ingredients.

The combined food + drink value of Noodle Cup per weight is (20+20)/0.5 = 80, equal first ranked with Mutfruit (but with zero rads). The food value alone would be middle ranked by weight compared to other food crops.

The combined food + drink value of Noodle Cup per Settler is 480, nearly 6x better than the next highest value, Tato, but with zero rads. The food value alone, 240, is still nearly 3x better than the next best food crop.

However production of Noodle Cup is constrained by the supply of empty bottles or Dirty Water items, which are non-farmable. This means Noodle Cup has 'hidden costs' that reduce its efficiency below what is superficially apparent.


* Note that due to a (probable) bug, Razorgrain can't be used for personal (player character) food in Survival.

** Melons also have a hydration effect equal to their food effect (6 points). While this makes them marginally more effective than Gourds it still does not make them viable compared to other crop types. For local use, purified water is usually freely available from pumps at settlements. For travel use, it is more efficient to carry water plus a more compact crop food.

There are various ways you can largely ignore the effect of rads in food even in Survival, at least in your day to day activities (as opposed to during combat or exploration).

• Build a medical stand and assign a settler as a doctor (except in Far Harbor)
  
• Build a Decontamination Arch, aka Rad Arch, if you have Wasteland Workshop DLC
  
• Build a Food Processor and create Preserved Instamash, ditto.
  
• Craft Refreshing Beverages, which turn one Radaway into a super Radaway with no side effects.

The first one is relatively challenging to do as it requires a lot of CHA perk investment. The other 3 solutions are trivially easy with low or minimal requirements. If you do any of these things you have basically nerfed the challenge of Survival, so you are probably not the target audience for this guide. :-)

In non Survival modes, food crops have no food value as such but simply provide HP as Aid. This is 10 HP per food item (plus modifiers for Perks). Only the radiation levels vary. Hunger tier rounding effects do not apply. Disease risk effects do not apply.

In terms of HP/rads the ranking is

Mutfruit, Razorgrain, Tarberry 10/2 = 5
Carrot, Corn, Gourd, Melon 10/3 = 3.33
Tato 10/5 = 2

In terms of HP/weight the ranking is

Carrot, Corn, Mutfruit, Razorgrain, Tarberry 10/0.1 = 100
Tato 10/0.5 = 20
Gourd, Melon 10/1 = 10

In terms of HP/Settler the ranking is

all others 120
Mutfruit 60

Razorgrain would be the clear winner here across all metrics. (It is tied only by Tarberry , which can only be produced at The Slog). There is no need to produce any other crop for player AID use.

Noodle Cup from Razorgrain can be considered as a (generally better) crop product:

HP/weight 40/0.5 = 80 (close second to the best raw crops, 0.8x)
HP/Settler 480 (far superior to any raw crops, 4x)
No rads

Values for Noodle Cup assume sufficient Dirty Water/empty bottles

In terms of food value produced per Settler allocated:

Tato 84
Corn, Melon, Gourd 72
Razorgrain, Tarberry 60
Mutfruit 48
Carrot 36

The food value is the same as the nominal cash value. So if you are growing food for local sale, the list above ranks the most productive cash crops. So if selling to a visiting trader or a local store, the most profitable crop is Tato.

If the food is not going to be used or sold locally, but is going to transported to be sold elsewhere, or transported to be eaten elsewhere, at any large scale you also need to consider the weight. In order of food value per weight:

Mutfruit 80
Corn 60
Razorgrain, Tarberry 50
Carrot 30
Tato 14
Melon, Gourd 6

While Mutfruit has the highest density of food value/cash value, bear in mind that it is 50% more expensive (labour-intensive) to produce as the next best crop, Corn. This means that Corn is probably the better crop item to transport for sale, once weight becomes the limiting factor in how much you can sell.

Crop profitability is the same regardless of whether the game mode is Survival or non Survival.

Noodle Cup from Razorgrain, or other crop-based soups, are not viable cash crops, as the inputs (empty bottles or Dirty Water items) are not available as shipments, and the buy/sell spread means that the costs of the inputs wipe out the profits.

Vegetable Starch is not a viable cash crop because the value of its inputs is more than double the nominal value of the end product. It is more profitable simply to sell the inputs directly. Vegetable Starch production is nonetheless a much more cost-effective way of obtaining Adhesive in quantity than buying Adhesive at shipment prices and (at typical buy-sell spreads) will be more cost-effective than buying Adhesive at single unit prices.

If using mods that allow the player to create Shipments, farming crops (and water) to make Vegetable Starch to create Adhesive Shipments will then become viable.

Settlers ignore rads in food and are unaffected by food quality. They will feed themselves efficiently regardless of what crops are planted.
However:

Allocate enough Tatos for your Settlers. They eat this food in preference. Providing 1 Tato production per Settler takes their food out of the equation and this allows you to plan rest of your crop production - the "profit" part - more easily.

It is believed that Settlers will prefer food in reverse alphabetical order - Tatoes first to Carrots last. I haven't tested this exhaustively myself.

Plant crops in units of 6 food units (6 Mutfruit, 12 of anything else) as this is the amount that can be farmed by one settler. Plant in clearly separate groups so it is easy to count the groups of 6. If you have leftover crops (or 'starter' crops) put in them in a clearly defined separate area ("nursery") until you have a group of 6 food units. This will make farm management easier and avoid under-allocation of farmer settlers.

As this requires equal Tato, Corn and Mutfruit (in multiples of 3), but Mutfruit requires twice as many Settlers per unit, allocate Settlers in groups of 2 or 4: half working on Mutfruit, one quarter working on Corn, one quarter working on Tatos.

Remember also to provide and allocate one surplus water per 3 Corn/Tato/Mutfruit. Remember only 3/4 of excess water capacity turns into surplus water in the Workshop. So for every group of 4 workers assigned to adhesive crops, add ~5 water production capacity (exactly: 16 water per 12 workers)

And remember to also produce an additional 1 food unit of Tato per Settler, otherwise Settlers will eat the Tatos that were intended for your Adhesive production.

The two kinds of crop-based soups (Noodle Cup and Vegetable Soup) require Dirty Water, and this will be the limiting factor on production of these soups. In turn Dirty Water is rare at vendors, so your main source of it is by obtaining (and filling) empty bottles. As a result you will not be able to sustainably produce many of these items and it's probably not worth having more than 6 or 12 of the relevant plants (Carrots, Razorgrain, extra Tato) planted for this purpose.

Noodle Cup is beneficial because it combines both food and water in the same weight as a unit of Purified Water. Hence it is a useful weight-saver on Survival Mode.

Vegetable Soup has the benefit of radiation resistance (like Rad X) without the risk of disease effects.

Ultimately the supply of both is constrained by the availability of empty bottles or (more rarely) Dirty Water items, so conserve empty bottles for this purpose and use these items sparingly.

Similarly you may want to grow small amounts of vegetables such as Gourd to support recipes like Radstag Stew. There is no point growing too much, as the limiting factor will generally be the other ingredients: meat, wild herbs, alcohol, etc. Remember to account for any extra water requirements.

The rounding errors in vendor pricing are significant enough to reduce or even erase the relative profitability differences between crops at times. Particularly as their price rounding is applied to the unit price, not after the price of a whole sale lot is calculated.

While in the general case, over time, the relative values I've stated here will hold true, for any specific combination of effective CHA, barter perks, and pair of crops, they might not hold true.

Food values in Survival are rounded up to half the 'width' of the current 'band' in the Hunger system. For example, in the Peckish band (24 food points 'wide'), the food value of all foods is rounded up to a minimum of 12 food points.

Depending on your eating habits, this can significantly alter the relative methods of different foods, including crop foods. It basically means that foods with a low unit food value (eg Carrots) are disproportionately effective in removing Hunger, if eaten at the 'bottom' of a hunger band. By the same token that means the effective radiation-to-food-value ratio of these low unit value foods is improved. For example food effects (and weight-efficiency, and radiation-efficiency) of Carrots would be quadrupled (3->12) and Melons doubled (6->12).

Considering this effect makes Carrots, as one notable example, surprisingly good for both radiation+weight-efficient use by the player for food. In each of the preceding sections of this Guide, there is a second ranking table that shows how the rankings chnage if this effect is exploited.

However there is a trade-off - every item of food eaten increases the disease risk pool. From the purposes of disease risk management in Survival, it is preferable to eat fewer items of high-value food.

Note that this rouding factor has no effect on labour-profit efficiency, weight-profit ratio, or the utility of Settler food. It only affects player-consumed food value considerations on Survival.

H/T to Bored Peon

Note that these food production numbers given here are nominal, and will be affected by Brahmin output and Settler happiness (aka ♥♥♥♥♥ 'n giggles).

At 80% Happiness and with no Brahmin, the numbers given in this Guide should be obtained exactly.

Original discussion thread, which has further viewpoints:

https://steamproxy.net/app/377160/discussions/0/1649918058737829691/

This guide assumes that you know the basics of the farming mechanics. If you don't here is a quick recap:

Each Settler can produce up to 6.0 units of food. That's 6 Mutfruit, or 12 of anything else, or a combination of the two (eg 2 Mutfruit plus 8 other plants of any other type).

Each Settler needs to eat 1.0 units of food per production cycle. They have preferences for which foods they will eat (eg Tatos). What they eat is subtracted from total food production before any net food is put into the workshop. (This is also reduced by food needed in remote locations connected by Supply Lines).

Typically around 75% (depending on happiness and other factors) of this surplus ends up in the settlement workshop inventory - the rest is lost as waste. This is quite random.

Settlements have production caps on food (and water) and will stop producing when they reach this cap. This can be prevented by removing AID items from the workshop, either manually or by them being consumed over a supply line.

In Survival, the nominal cash value of a food item is also (what you see in your inventory when you are not trading) is how much it will decrease hunger by.