An old misconception aboutStardew Valleyhas resurfaced, only to be debunked with some help from creator ConcernedApe himself. While there’s a lot to discover inStardew Valley, from obscure secret eventsto game-changing glitches, every so often, a fan hears a rumor that just isn’t true.Stardewis opaque by design. Its tutorial explains only the broadest details of gameplay, then leaves you to experiment with the rest of the system to figure out how everything works. That can lead toincredible moments of discovery, but sometimes, those discoveries just don’t hold water.
This was the case whenvoid-cheesecakeon Reddit shared an image with the title, “This is so obvious but I had no idea.” The image purports to show an easy way to determine the quality of a piece of fruit before picking it from a tree:the bigger the fruit, the higher the quality. However, subreddit modKellyJoyRuntBunnyquickly chimed in to say “ConcernedApe has said this isn’t true.” And sure enough, way back in 2020,ConcernedApereplied to a post on X (formerly Twitter) claiming the same to say, “Unless there’s some ‘bug’ in one of the ports that I’m unaware of, this is not true.”
Stardew Valley Fruit Trees Aren’t That Complicated
How To Determine Quality
Admittedly, there’s no way to visually identify the quality of the fruit on a tree inStardew Valley. Quality is determined by a much simpler equation:for each year after a fruit tree reaches maturity, the fruit it bears jumps up one level in quality. In other words, in its first year, a fruit tree will only grant normal fruit; then silver quality, then gold quality, and finally, after three years of maturity, iridium.
So really, in order to grow the highest quality fruits (and ferment them intothe most valuable wines),all you really have to do is be patient and keep track of how long you’ve had a tree. There’s no way to determine their quality before picking them otherwise, and there’s no luck involved - this is a simple matter of time.
It’s exactly the kind of subtle change that the game expects you to learn to look out for.
That said,a detail like this would fit in perfectly with everything else aboutStardew Valley. It’s exactly the kind of subtle change that the game expects you to learn to look out for over the in-game years, eventually becoming an expert on fruit quality based on visual cues alone.
But, at least in this case, it’s not true - althoughif you download the appropriate mod, you’re able to access a similar feature for yourself.
Mods Can Change The Smallest Stardew Valley Details
Even Fruit Trees
As other commenters, likeBluebomber_24,pointed out,the screenshot of variably-sized fruit actually comes from a mod: Fruit Tree Tweaks For 1.6, uploaded to Nexus Mods by userchiccenSDV. This mod changes several things about the way fruit trees work inStardew Valley, allowing you to plant crops next to growing fruit trees, alter the time it takes them to mature, and harvest fruit from them in all seasons - even winter.
But what it doesn’t do is change the size of fruit based on quality. Instead,fruit sizes and color are set to vary ever-so-slightly and entirely at random. The goal here is a type of realism: when you look at a real fruit tree, not every apple or orange is the exact same shape, size, or color. This fruit tree mod attempts to make the same true ofStardew’s sprites.
The fact of the matter is that there arethousands of mods forStardew Valley. While some of them institute massive changes, like adding new characters, others change tiny little details, like the sizes of the fruit on your trees. If you’re playing on PC, it’s incredibly easy to customize yourStardew Valleyexperience however you want, and that’s a major part of what’s kept it so popular throughout the years.
