Weeds and Pests

Weeds and pests will be the main source of rice disorders in your rice crops, and staying on top of keeping them away from your rice is a never-ending fight up until the very end. Too much of either can ruin your rice and lower its quality drastically.

## Weeds and prevention

Weeds steal nutrients from your rice crops, lower their quality and diminish stat bonuses that would otherwise have gone to the rice; they can be identified in the field quickly by an exclamation mark above them:

You can pull the weed by pressing the action button. It is advised to stay on top of pulling weeds out of your rice field at all times; you can stem their effects by staying on top of this, though it is best to address their root causes.

Weeds thrive in deep water as well as in fields with low herbicide values. Therefore, you are advised to be extra vigilant for weeds whenever the water is deep in your field. You can also eradicate weeds by draining the field briefly - or, when you're draining the field during the third offshoots stage. Another method of taking care of weeds is ducks, which eat weeds.

Remember that ducks also eat your rice past the third offshoots stage, however.

## Pests and prevention

Pests, unlike weeds, are not visible directly, and are instead managed via other species. That's right - spiders, snails and frogs are not pests, but are in fact your friends and will help eradicate pests. However, you will have to catch and release them all first so they can do their work. You can find spiders inside various areas in buildings, you can find frogs all around and you can find snails near bodies of water. Like weeds, they will be marked by exclamation points and an action prompt:

And when you catch them, you will see a popup message with the following format:

The percentage by this message is determined by how many you have caught over the year (it resets every winter), and determines that species' effectiveness at dealing with pests. Frogs, spiders and snails all prevent different types of pests, so take care. You can observe them from the status screen after talking to Tauemon about the rice:

The status bars on Snail, Spider and Frog are all better when higher, as they indicate their effectiveness in removing pests, which are the rest of the fauna - it's better when they're lower, as higher pest values can leave your crops susceptible to disease. Note that you can also see the status of the weeds here, which also determines how susceptible your rice is to weeds-derived diseases. You can't get the percentage values to 100% no matter how hard you try however - usually around 40% is good, though.

Pulling weeds can also deter pests, in fact, as many insects like weeds.

It is **very** important to note that if you keep ducks out, they will eat spiders, which will lower their effectiveness in removing pests.

## Pesticide and Herbicide

Pesticide and herbicide are your next line of defense in protecting your rice. Toxicity and herbicide are different values here, so despite some of the more negative aspects of pesticides in the real world, herbicide does not necessarily behave that way and so you do not have to worry about high pesticide values - in fact, it can only be good for your crops here, given your toxicity value is also low.

Pesticides and herbicides are added via the second stage of adding fertilizer, and putting them in can stunt the progress of pests and weeds respectively. Take note that you will need high values of each before you see a real impact, ie, 15+ of either value. Metallic Sand, Aqueous Droplet, Branching Flower and Flaming Core are very good for these, and can be obtained from the fortress, river, forest and volcano regions respectively from enemies at night, or even from Amagaeshi Shrine at night.

You may also use Salt, but be extra careful, as this can lead to salt damage, and if you sorted your rice with salt, it is recommended to not use Salt at all, as it can lead to salt damage no matter how low your toxicity values are.