FarmVille Crop Whisperer: How Does it Work? Updated!

How do you fertilize neighbors' crops in FarmVille, the popular and highly addictive Facebook application enjoyed by millions of users every day?

The FarmVille Crop Whisperer is a brand new Ribbon acheivement, and it was added to the Facebook application yesterday. It replaces the retired Shutterbug Ribbon under the acheivements section. In order to attain the yellow Crop Whisperer ribbon, a player must "fertilize 100 neighbor crops". So how exactly does one fertilize crops on FarmVille? Here's the scoop coupled with some important notes.

Bags of fertilizer are rewarded on a random basis to Farmville players who help their neighbors with various tasks, including pulling weeds and chasing away raccoons. Farmville users who receive fertilizer are awarded five bags at a time. To see if you've been awarded bags of fertilizer after assisting a neighbor, check near your fuel gauge for a blue and white icon.

Each Farmville player can potentially receive five bags of fertilizer, per neighbor, per day. However, note that there are no guarantees that any bags of fertilizer will be awarded to a single user at any time. If you don't receive any bags after helping one neighbor, move on to another and keep trying.

Altruism is the name of the game when it comes to the crop whisperer ribbons. FarmVille players who find themselves rewarded with fertilizer can only use the gifts to fertilize their neighbors' crops. The Farmville fertilizer cannot be used on your own crops.

Each bag of fertilizer will fertilize one plot of land. When a FarmVille crop has been fertilized, it will sparkle, and the produce planted in the plot will grow larger and reward extra coins as well as experience points when harvested by its owner.

FarmVille players who fertilize neighbors' crops are rewarded with progress toward their Crop Whisperer achievement ribbons.

I've been rewarded with two sets of Fertilizer Bags thus far, and have an essential tip to pass on: Once you've received your 5 bags, it seems that you MUST use them as soon as they're received. Once you click to another screen, the bags disappear and you won't get them back. So, if you're helping your neighbor Fred and you receive 5 bags of Farmville fertilizer, you MUST use it on Fred's farm, at that very time. You can't save the bags and use them for Tammy's farm. Be careful!

Launched by Zynga in June of 2009, FarmVille is currently Facebook's most popular application with more than 56 million active users, according to Inside Social Games' October 1st posting. FarmVille beat out rival Farm Town, the third place finisher, by a staggering 32 million users. Crime game Mafia Wars came in second with 25 million users, but clearly, farming rules the day for more Facebook users.

There's a reason FarmVille is so popular, after all: The regular new additions, including the special, limited edition Halloween stock, keep us coming back for more.

Sources

FarmVille Freak Blog

Personal Experience