Crop Growth in Windrose runs on a single global timer: approximately 70 minutes of real-world time from planting to harvest, applied to every crop in the game. There are no per-crop variances, no watering cycles, no wilt or rot penalties, and no modifiers. Crops continue to progress while the game is closed. This page covers the timer in detail; for the wider system see Farming System.
Growth Timer
Property | Value |
|---|---|
Total time to harvest | Approximately 70 minutes of real-world time |
Per-crop variance | None documented; all crops share the same timer |
Offline progression | Yes. Crops continue to grow while the game is closed or the character is offline. |
Modifiers | None documented. No composter, no worker, no food accelerator. |
Failure state | None. Crops do not wilt, rot, or fail. |
The community-standard practice is to plant a full rotation before logging off and harvest at the next session. A four-slot Seedbed planted at night delivers four ready crops the next morning without any intervening attention. Because there is no rot timer, leaving crops sitting past the ready state costs nothing.
Stages
The crop visibly progresses from seed to sprout to mature plant in the game world, but the community documentation does not formalize named stages or per-stage durations. The harvest prompt appears once the roughly 70-minute total elapses. There is no way to harvest early, and no visible reward for waiting past the ready state.
Planting Schedule
Since the timer is fixed, planning rotations is just clock arithmetic. The table below shows when a batch planted at a given time becomes ready, useful for stacking a harvest with a return trip from the Deep Ocean or a boss clear.
Planted | Ready (approx.) | Good Pairing |
|---|---|---|
Before a sailing run | About 70 minutes later | Harvest on return to port |
Before a camp clear | About 70 minutes later | Harvest between objectives |
Before logging off | Ready at next login (timer keeps running offline) | Harvest first thing next session |
Seed Economy
Every harvest returns the seed used plus the crop. Planting 25 seeds across six Seedbeds returns 25 seeds at harvest. The farm is a self-sustaining loop after the first seed gather; the only reason to buy more seeds is to scale parallel Seedbed capacity. Yield does not change with the timer, so there is no benefit to leaving a ready crop in the ground beyond convenience.
For bulk yields on a schedule, the Farming Contractor in Tortuga runs an 8-hour passive job (50 seeds plus 20 Silver Coins) that returns all 50 seeds plus a large crop yield. This is strictly additive with the player's home Seedbeds, and the 8-hour job is the natural overnight companion to a Seedbed rotation.
Practical Timing
At roughly 70 minutes per cycle, a day of active play can complete multiple rotations if planting and harvesting are scheduled around other activities (sailing, camp clears, quest progression). Players report treating farming as a background system rather than an active one: plant before leaving port, harvest on return.
A high-value crop to keep cycling is Flax, since it is the only source of Plant Fiber for fabric. A dedicated Flax rotation that runs every login keeps the fiber stockpile ahead of armor and sail demands.
See Also
Farming System - farming overview
Seedbed Placement - Seedbed build rules
Farming Contractor - parallel automation