Genes at a glance
Three good (green), two bad (red):
| Gene | What it does | Breeding weight |
|---|---|---|
| G Growth | Grows faster. Harvest sooner and more often. | 0.6 |
| Y Yield | Bigger harvests, more clones per cut. | 0.6 |
| H Hardiness | Handles cold, heat and poor soil. Good in snow or desert, otherwise the weakest green. | 0.6 |
| W Water | Needs more water. Dries out and slows down sooner. | 1.0 |
| X Empty | Does nothing. A wasted slot. | 1.0 |
Order doesn't matter to the plant
GGGYYY and YGYGYG grow the same. Order only matters for breeding, which works slot by slot (section 3).
The two “god clones”
Six greens, usually one of these two:
Fastest
The most produce per hour, but more harvesting and replanting.
Biggest
Bigger harvests and four clones per cut instead of three (per Facepunch's wiki). A little slower, much less replanting.
Four or more greens and no reds already farms well. Get rid of the reds first, polish later.
Why red genes spread so easily
A red weighs 1.0, a green only 0.6. One red neighbour can push a red gene into your plant. It takes two matching greens (0.6 + 0.6 = 1.2) to beat it.
Godclone's score: G = 1, Y = 1, H = 0.5, W = X = 0, so a god clone scores 6. Farming in snow? Raise H in Options.
Growth stages
Eight stages. Genes are decided at Crossbreed. Clone before or after it.
- Seed
- Seedling
- Saplingclone keeps the old genes
- Crossbreedgenes decided here
- Matureclone keeps the new genes
- Fruiting
- Ripeharvest
- Dying
| Stage | Base length | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | 1 min | Just planted. Already counts as a neighbour. |
| Seedling | 10 min | Growing. |
| Sapling | 10 min | Clones copy its genes now, before crossing. |
| Crossbreed | 1 min | Genes are worked out once, as it enters this stage. |
| Mature | 60 min | Done crossing. Check the genes and clone it. |
| Fruiting | 30 min | The harvest grows. |
| Ripe | up to 24 h | Stays ripe about a day (raised from 14 h in April 2026). |
| Dying | 100 min | Harvest before this or lose it. |
Seed, Seedling, Sapling and Fruiting are the same for every plant. The rest differ a little:
| Plant | Crossbreed | Mature | Seed to ripe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corn, Pumpkin, Wheat | 1 min | 30 min | ~82 min |
| Potato | 1 min | 45 min | ~97 min |
| Hemp, Rose, Orchid, Sunflower | 1 min | 60 min | ~112 min |
| Berries (all five colours) | 5 min | 45 min | ~101 min |
Real times vary
Base numbers from the game files (October 2026), read as minutes. Poor light, water, temperature or soil slow a plant. More G genes speed it up. Servers can change growth speed too. In perfect conditions a plant with no G reaches Crossbreed 21 minutes after planting, and one with 3 G after 12. Without fertilizer it takes half as long again.
How crossbreeding works
When a plant enters Crossbreed it can take genes from the plants touching it. Once, and one slot at a time: slot 1 only listens to the neighbours' slot 1, and so on.
Which plants count
- Same planter. Planters pushed together never cross.
- Same plant type. Hemp only listens to hemp. A red berry ignores a blue berry.
- Touching slots, diagonals included. Two slots away, or across an empty slot, doesn't count.
- Any living stage. A fresh seed counts, and so does a mature plant.
- Never itself. The bred plant's own genes don't vote. They can only defend.
The rule, slot by slot
- Add up the neighbours' genes in this slot: each green letter (G, Y, H) adds 0.6 to its total, each red letter (W, X) 1.0.
- The biggest total is the candidate.
- It replaces the bred plant's gene only if strictly bigger than that gene's weight: over 0.6 to replace a green, over 1.0 to replace a red. A draw keeps the old gene.
- Two letters sharing the biggest total is a tie, settled by planting order.
One slot, quick maths
| Neighbours have | Totals | Bred plant has | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | G 0.6 | Y | Y kept: 0.6 doesn't beat 0.6 |
| GG | G 1.2 | X | G 1.2 beats 1.0 |
| W | W 1.0 | G | W one red beats a green |
| GGW | G 1.2, W 1.0 | any | G two greens outvote a red |
| GYH | 0.6 each | H | H kept: nobody gets past 0.6 |
| GYHX | X 1.0, rest 0.6 | Y | X scattered greens lose to one red |
| GGYY | G 1.2, Y 1.2 | any | G or Y a tie: planting order decides |
Rules of thumb
- One green neighbour never changes anything. One red turns a green slot red.
- Two matching greens (1.2) beat a single red and replace anything.
- If every slot's winner reaches 1.2, the bred plant's genes don't matter: any spare of the same type, even a junk seed, can go in the middle.
- Five matching greens against three matching reds is an exact tie (3.0 each): only possible with eight neighbours, and planting order settles it.
Worked example: three flawed clones make a god clone
Three hemp clones, each with one red gene in a different slot, around any spare hemp in a large planter:
- A GGXYYY
- B XGGYWY
- C GWGYYH
- ? any spare hemp
| Slot | A | B | C | Totals | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | G | X | G | G 1.2, X 1.0 | G |
| 2 | G | G | W | G 1.2, W 1.0 | G |
| 3 | X | G | G | G 1.2, X 1.0 | G |
| 4 | Y | Y | Y | Y 1.8 | Y |
| 5 | Y | W | Y | Y 1.2, W 1.0 | Y |
| 6 | Y | Y | H | Y 1.2, H 0.6 | Y |
Worked example: how a bad cross goes wrong
Now a bred plant YGHYHH with three random neighbours XGYYGW, YHXHGY and HYYWYY:
| Slot | Totals | Had | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | X 1.0, Y 0.6, H 0.6 | Y | X one red beats scattered greens |
| 2 | G 0.6, Y 0.6, H 0.6 | G | G kept: nobody beats 0.6 |
| 3 | Y 1.2, X 1.0 | H | Y |
| 4 | W 1.0, Y 0.6, H 0.6 | Y | W red again |
| 5 | G 1.2, Y 0.6 | H | G |
| 6 | Y 1.2, W 1.0 | H | Y |
It ends up XGYWGY: two greens lost to reds nobody outvoted. Slot 2 is the other trap. When nothing gets past 0.6 the bred plant keeps its own gene, so the middle plant does matter. Godclone names one when that happens.
Planter shapes and who touches whom
The shape decides how many donors can touch. ★ is one plant, ✓ slots touch it, plain slots don't.
Large Planter Box and Railroad Planter
Breed in the middle so up to eight donors reach it. Any slot works if every donor touches it.
Small Planter Box and Bathtub Planter
A row of three. The ends don't touch each other. Two donors, bred plant in the middle.
Minecart Planter
With one neighbour a green can never win (0.6 beats nothing), so a minecart only passes on red genes. Grow one plant, or two identical clones.
Triangle Planter and Triangle Railroad Planter
Three corners about 1 m apart plus a middle slot. All four touch, so at most three donors.
Plant Pot
Never crossbreeds: the safest place for a clone you can't lose.
From the game's planter files: side-by-side slots are about 0.9 m apart, diagonals 1.3 m, two apart 1.85 m. Crossbreeding reaches 1.5 m (game code), which gives the pattern above.
Ties and planting order
A tie is two letters sharing the top total in a slot, like G 1.2 against Y 1.2. Four hemp donors around a spare plant, slot 3 highlighted:
- A GGGYYW 1st
- B GGYYYY
- C HGGYWY 2nd
- D GXYYYY
What decides a tie
Players and calculators long treated a tie as a coin flip. In March 2026 Facepunch rewrote how plants find their neighbours (commit notes of 3 March, shipped with that month's update). The game reads the neighbours in planting order, and a letter only takes the lead when its total goes strictly past the leader's, so the first letter to reach the top total keeps the slot. Confirmed in the game's own server code (October 2026); before March 2026, where a plant sat (east or west side) mattered instead.
Plant the labelled ones first
- Plant the bred plant when your timing says. Its own genes never vote, so its turn doesn't matter.
- Plant the donors marked 1st, 2nd… in that order.
- Then the rest of the donors, in any order.
Here: A, then C, then B and D. Don't hold sprint to fill the slots in one go, or you lose track of the order.
Plant fresh
Harvesting or pulling a plant and replanting it moves it to the end of the order, so plant fresh when a tie matters. Godclone shows 100% for a tied outcome when a planting order wins every tied slot, and leaves out the ones no order can give.
More than one tie? One order can often win every tied slot; Godclone shows those as 100% with 1st, 2nd… labels. Where the ties pull different ways no order works, and that outcome isn't listed.
Using Godclone
-
Pick the plant type
Each type has its own clone list, saved in your browser only.
-
Add your clones
Type or paste one clone per line: GGXWYH, g-g-x w y h and G,G,X,W,Y,H all work. Anything after the six letters is a note, like GGXWYH # from the lake.
Scan Rust (beta) reads genes from a screenshot, or live from your shared screen on desktop. Check what it read.
Each clone gets a number (#1, #2…) that results refer to. Duplicates and typos are flagged. Ten or more different clones is a good start.
-
Calculate
Godclone tries every mix of your clones, 2 to 5 around each cross by default. Change that in Options, along with steps, repeat clones and gene scores.
-
Read a result card
GGGYYYGEN.1Score 6Chance 100%Overall 100% plant in this orderCenter
any spare plant
Surrounding plants
- #1 GGGYYW 1st
- #3 HGGYWY 2nd
- #2 GGYYYY
- #4 GXYYYY
PlanterWhyCopyI got it
- The plant you'll get. Other ways to reach it are tucked under the best one.
- Score: see section 1. Chance: this cross, 100% when every slot is won outright or its tie has a planting order. Overall: every step of the plan working first time.
- Center is the bred plant. “Any spare plant” means every slot is won outright, so use your worst seed. If one is named (like #5), use it: it keeps one of its own genes, or a slot with a lone red depends on its red letter.
- Surrounding plants go in the slots touching the center, by #number in your list. A number listed twice needs two clones. 1st 2nd are the planting order for a tie.
- Planter shows where everything goes, Why each slot's totals, and Copy a plain-text recipe for Discord.
-
Two-step plans (GEN.2)
A GEN.2 result first breeds an in-between plant (GEN.1), then uses it as a donor or the center for the final cross. Steps shows the route, first cross first. Overall multiplies every step's chance.
-
Got it? Tell Godclone
When a cross works, press I got it and the new genes join your list, marked as bred. Add unlucky results too.
-
Try layouts in the Planter Lab
The Planter Lab is a sandbox for every planter shape: place clones, see the outcome and slot totals live. Open in Planter Lab on a result card loads that recipe, one button per step, with a way back to your results.
Timing the cross
The cross uses whatever touches the bred plant the moment it enters Crossbreed.
- 0 min
Plant the bred plant alone for a head start.
- Mid-Sapling
Plant the donors (labelled ones first): about 16 min in, or 9 if the bred plant has 3 G. They count even as seeds.
- Crossbreed
The bred plant crosses: about 21 min in, or 12 with 3 G, later in poor conditions. Keep every donor alive and in place until it's past Crossbreed.
- Mature
Check the genes and clone it.
Why the head start?
Donors cross too when they reach Crossbreed. A donor planted earlier, or with more G than the bred plant, gets there first and is rewritten before the bred plant reads it, so the bred plant sees its new genes (Godclone counts every donor with its listed genes). More G grows faster, so a bred plant with more G than its donors can sometimes go in at the same time. When in doubt, give it the lead.
Another way: use donors already Mature or later. They've finished crossing, so their genes won't change.
Clone soon after the cross. Genes don't change after Crossbreed, but a plant left too long gets harvested or dies, and the new genes go with it.
Tips
Collect plenty of seeds
Variety is what you need. Ten to twenty different seeds of one type usually open up a good plan. If not, gather more.
Clone early, keep backups
Clone a plant in Sapling before it crosses, and keep a few copies of your best somewhere safe, like a plant pot.
Keep a library per plant type
Add a note after each clone (# wild, north lake) and press I got it for every bred plant, so each list matches your stash.
A planter of identical clones is safe
Fill planters with copies of your god clone: when every neighbour matches, each slot's winner is the letter the plant already has.
Growing mixed plants without crossing them
No two plants of the same type may touch. In a large planter the four corners never touch each other. A two-type checkerboard fails because diagonals count (the middle touches all four corners). With four types you can fill every slot:
- A e.g. hemp (4)
- B e.g. corn (2)
- C e.g. potato (2)
- D e.g. pumpkin (1)
Donors change too. After a session they've usually crossed with their own neighbours. Check them before reuse, or use the clones you took before planting.
How Godclone calculates
For each slot of the bred plant:
- Only neighbours count: same planter, same plant type, touching. The bred plant's own gene is not added.
- Each neighbour adds its gene's weight to that letter's total: 0.6 for G, Y and H, 1.0 for W and X. (Stored as 3 and 5, so rounding can't fake a tie.)
- If the top total is strictly greater than the weight of the bred plant's current gene, the top letter replaces it. Otherwise the gene is kept.
- If several letters share the top total, the one planted to that total first wins. Godclone works out the planting order that gives your target, shows it as 1st, 2nd…, and lists only outcomes some order can give.
- A single cross is sure when you follow its planting order; a route multiplies its steps' chances.
Choosing the middle plant. If every slot's top total is 1.2 or more, it beats any gene: “any spare plant”. A top total of exactly 1.0 (one red) makes that slot red whatever is in the middle, but a middle plant with the other red letter keeps its own, so Godclone names the middle plant there. A top total of only 0.6 leaves the middle plant's own gene, so Godclone tries each of your clones there and names the best.
The search. Every combination of your clones as surrounding plants (repeats allowed unless you turn them off), from the smallest to the largest group you allowed, split over your computer's cores. It keeps the best few ways to reach each outcome. For two- and three-step plans it adds the best new plants to your pool and searches again. Results rank by score, then overall chance, then fewer steps and fewer plants. It all runs in your browser.
Where the rules come from
- The game's own files and server code (Rust server, October 2026): the weights from the shared gene asset generic.genes that every plant type uses, stage lengths and planter slot positions, and the crossbreed rule itself, ties and the 1.5 m reach included.
- Facepunch's notes. The Farming update devblog (April 2020), official change lists and public commit messages: the Crossbreed stage (2020), longer crossbreeding for berry bushes (2020) and the physics-free neighbour lookup (March 2026).
- Community testing. Years of player guides and other calculators agree on the weights, the “must strictly beat the gene that's there” rule and diagonal neighbours.
How sure we are
| Rule | How sure |
|---|---|
| Weights 0.6 / 1.0, same for every plant | Very read from game data |
| Slot by slot, own gene not counted, must strictly beat | Very game code, and every careful source agrees |
| Same planter, same type, diagonals count | Very |
| Who touches whom in small, triangle and minecart planters | Very slot positions from the planter files, the 1.5 m reach from the code |
| Ties go to the first letter to reach the top total, in planting order | Very read in the game's code, October 2026 |
| Dying plants still count as neighbours | Very until it actually dies (game code) |
| How much each gene does | Very game code: each G +25% growth, each Y +25% yield and one more clone per two Y, each W +10% water need, H +0.2 soil quality (capped) and +0.05 temperature tolerance |
Rules checked against the game's own files and server code, October 2026.
FAQ
My plant came out different from the plan. Why?
Usually a donor reached Crossbreed first and changed its genes, another plant of the same type was touching, the donors went in in the wrong order, or a gene was typed or scanned wrong. Check each slot in Why against what you planted.
Does the order of the genes change how the plant grows?
No. Only the count matters. Order only matters for breeding.
Do different berry colours, or two different crops, crossbreed?
No. Only plants of exactly the same type cross.
My two planters are right next to each other. Do they cross?
No. Crossbreeding only happens inside one planter.
Can one good neighbour fix a bad gene?
No. One green (0.6) can't beat anything. You need two matching greens (1.2) in that slot, more than any rival letter.
Why does the calculator say “any spare plant” for the center?
The donors win every slot outright, so the center's genes are replaced anyway. Use your worst seed or clone of that type.
The same #number is listed twice. Is that a mistake?
No. Two copies of that plant go around the center: clone it first.
What do the 1st, 2nd… labels mean?
A slot is tied. Plant the donors marked 1st, 2nd… first and that letter wins the slot every time. See Ties and planting order.
Does it matter which slot each donor goes in?
Only that every donor touches the bred plant. Position doesn't settle ties; planting order does.
Do the rules differ between plants?
No. Every plant type uses the same weights. Only stage lengths differ (berries spend longer in Crossbreed).
Is my clone list uploaded anywhere?
No. Lists and settings stay in your browser, share links carry the genes in the link itself, and scanned screenshots are read on your device. The site only counts anonymous visits and which tools get used (no cookies or IDs, never your genes). Untick “Anonymous usage stats” at the bottom of any page to stop that. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, also counts page views (Cloudflare Web Analytics, no cookies).
Is Godclone made by Facepunch?
No. It's an unofficial fan tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Facepunch Studios.