Hydroponics guide: crops, minerals and a Huge Nutrifruit

A Hydroponic System grows one seed at a time, adding 8 growth points a night for 8 energy, and drinks its daily water from the container you insert. Plant health starts at 100% and only falls: wrong mineral levels and any contaminant above 0.10% cost health every growth point, and health at harvest sets produce size. Green Thumb needs a Huge Nutrifruit: harvest at 96–99% health for half the Large fruit to become Huge, or at 100% for all of them.

Crops

Seed	Nights	Harvest	Water per night	Minerals	Contaminants	Seeds back
Nutrifruit	2	7 Nutrifruit	100 ml	0.5–2.5%	Resistant	None
Fillerweed	1	4 + 1 small	451 ml	0–2%	Immune	1 (50% chance of 2)
Coffee Beans	3	8 beans	100 ml	1.75–3.25%	Slightly sensitive	The beans are seeds
Hydroreed	3	Filters only with a module	20 ml	0–2%	Immune	1 (50% chance of 2)
Bloomberry	3, then every 2	6 BloomBerries	100 ml	1.25–2.75%	Slightly sensitive	Regrows by itself
Dream Cap Spores	4	8 Dream Caps	100 ml	1.75–3.25%	Slightly sensitive	1 (25% chance of 2)
Kotton	6	13 Kotton Fiber	250 ml	2–5%	Very sensitive	1, or 2 above 80% health

Base speed, full health and natural traits. Some guides published on 29 October list smaller yields (Kotton 9, Nutrifruit 5); the values above are the current ones.

Dream Caps are contraband. Hydroreed grows no food but removes about 28% of each contaminant from its water every night, down to roughly 99.8% purity. Bloomberry is perennial: remove it with a Hatchet on the machine.

Health

Minerals. Mineral % = mineral ml ÷ water ml × 100. Below the crop’s range it loses 1% health per growth point, above it 0.5%. A Hydroponic Nutrient Tablet adds 15 ml of mineral, so one tablet in 1,000 ml makes 1.5%. Plants drink water but leave minerals behind, so the percentage rises as the container empties.

Contaminants. Heavy metals, chemical contaminants, microbes, organic waste, acid and base each cost health separately; debris does not.

Each contaminant in the water	Health lost per growth point
0.10% or less	0
Up to 0.20%	0.15–0.2%
Up to 0.40%	0.3–0.6%
Up to 1%	0.8–1.6%
Up to 2%	3.2%
Over 2%	6.4%

The loss is multiplied by the crop’s sensitivity: Immune takes nothing, Very Sensitive nearly double. A plant short of water or power waits without losing health. Growing faster does not help with bad water: the damage is per growth point, not per night.

Harvest size

Health at harvest	Produce	Amount (Kotton, Dream Cap)
91–100%	All Large	Full
81–90%	30% normal, 70% Large	Full
71–80%	80% normal, 20% Large	Full
51–70%	All normal	×0.9
31–50%	30% Small	×0.8
16–30%	70% Small	×0.65
0–15%	All Small	×0.5

Produce	Small	Normal	Large	Huge
Nutrifruit	8	12	18	32
Kotton Fiber	36	46	60	—
Dream Cap	17	23	31	—

Base values in credits. Nutrifruit’s count never drops with health; only the size changes.

Green Thumb: a Huge Nutrifruit

1. Fill the container with Basewater or better. Nutrifruit is Resistant, but heavy metals and microbes above 0.10% still cost health; see water purification.
2. Add one Nutrient Tablet per litre (1.5%), the middle of Nutrifruit’s 0.5–2.5% range. Over two nights the plant drinks 200 ml and uses 0.8 ml of minerals, leaving 14.2 ml in 800 ml: about 1.8%, still inside the range.
3. Check the Growth Score with a Plant Analyzer (200 credits) before the second night.
4. Harvest at 96–99% for half Huge, 100% for all Huge. A Quality bonus above 100% from modules makes every Large fruit Huge from 96%.

Modules

Performance counts at half and is rounded down: 8 × (1 + Performance ÷ 200), so you need +25% before a ninth growth point appears. Quality multiplies the harvest by (1 + Quality ÷ 200).

Module	Effect
Nutrifruit Hydroponic Module	+1 Nutrifruit per module
Fillerweed Production	+4 Fillerweed, no seeds; does not stack
Hydroreed Filter	+1 Hydroreed Filter per module
Kotton Auto Loom	Kotton comes out as Kotton Fabric (65 each)
Dream Cap Neutralizer	Dream Cap becomes legal Meal Cap, +2 per module
Dream Cap Nightmare	Dream Cap becomes Nightmare Cap for Nightmare Dust
Hydroponic Smuggler	Hides a contraband seed while it grows

Get the system from the Hydroponic Farmer start or the Retired Farmer upgrade (350); see Wild’s Network. Dream Caps feed the chemistry chain and BloomBerries feed winemaking.