Alchemy Factory Best Fertilizer Guide
Fertilizer is one of the first systems that feels simple, then suddenly starts breaking factories when you scale. Picking the right fertilizer at the right time saves space, fuel, and rebuild pain.
This guide explains which fertilizer is best, why advanced fertilizer changes everything, and how the nutrient system actually works in practice.
Which Fertilizer Is Best
Advanced Fertilizer is the best fertilizer once you can make it consistently.
Basic Fertilizer works early, but it becomes a bottleneck fast. Advanced Fertilizer supports far more output per nursery and drastically reduces how many nurseries you need.
If you are planning automation beyond early tiers, Advanced Fertilizer is the correct long term choice.
Why Advanced Fertilizer Wins
Advanced Fertilizer has much higher nutrient value and much higher max fertility. That combo matters more than the raw numbers suggest.
With Basic Fertilizer, each nursery burns through fertilizer quickly and produces limited output. Scaling means adding more nurseries, more belts, more space, and more headaches.
With Advanced Fertilizer, a single nursery can output far more items per minute, assuming your belt speed can keep up. That means fewer nurseries, fewer belts, and smaller builds.
In real factories, this usually means one Advanced Fertilizer nursery can replace several Basic Fertilizer nurseries.
How Nutrients Actually Work
Nutrient value is the total nutrients stored in one fertilizer item.
Max fertility is how fast nutrients are delivered to the nursery.
Plants consume nutrients per item grown, not per minute and not per second.
Flax requires 24 nutrient value to grow one flax.
Basic Fertilizer has 144 nutrient value and low max fertility. Advanced Fertilizer has 720 nutrient value and very high max fertility.
What matters most is this. The nursery will try to grow as fast as belt speed allows. Fertilizer is consumed faster if production upgrades increase nursery output.
This is why Basic Fertilizer collapses at scale. It cannot deliver nutrients fast enough once production bonuses stack.
Practical Fertilizer Behavior
Ignore the confusing UI math when planning builds. Watch two things instead.
How many items per minute the nursery outputs
How fast fertilizer drains from the lower bar
If fertilizer drains too fast, that nursery is outscaling its fertilizer type. If output stalls, belt speed is the limit.
Advanced Fertilizer fixes both problems in most mid game and late game setups.
When To Switch Fertilizers
Use Basic Fertilizer early when space does not matter and production is slow.
Switch to Advanced Fertilizer as soon as mushrooms are unlocked and automatable.
Once Advanced Fertilizer is online, rebuild. Trying to patch old Basic Fertilizer layouts usually costs more time than starting fresh.
Yes, mushrooms are annoying. The payoff is worth it.
Fertilizer Upgrade Priority
Fertilizer efficiency upgrades scale extremely well with Advanced Fertilizer.
Production speed upgrades increase fertilizer consumption. Always pair them with fertilizer efficiency or you will starve nurseries.
Fuel efficiency helps indirectly by keeping fertilizer production stable.
Common Mistakes
Overbuilding nurseries instead of upgrading fertilizer
Ignoring belt speed limits and blaming fertilizer
Mixing Basic and Advanced Fertilizer on the same production chain
Scaling production speed without scaling fertilizer efficiency
If your factory feels bloated, fertilizer choice is usually the cause.
Final Blurb
Basic Fertilizer gets plants growing. Advanced Fertilizer gets factories breathing.
Once Advanced Fertilizer is unlocked and automated, production becomes cleaner, smaller, and far easier to scale. It is one of the biggest progression jumps in Alchemy Factory, even if it does not look flashy on paper.
Mushrooms are annoying. Rebuilding is annoying. Having a factory that actually works is not.
FAQ
Is Advanced Fertilizer always better than Basic Fertilizer
Yes for automation and scaling. Basic Fertilizer only makes sense very early.
Does nutrient value matter more than max fertility
Both matter, but max fertility is what allows higher output per nursery.
Why does fertilizer drain faster after production upgrades
Production upgrades increase nursery output, which increases nutrient demand.
Can one Advanced Fertilizer support multiple nurseries
Yes, depending on belt speed and fertilizer efficiency upgrades.
Should I rebuild after switching fertilizer
Almost always yes. Advanced Fertilizer changes optimal layouts completely.
