Windflowers
Windflowers might be my favorite overall flower. They don't have the pedigree that Roses do, but I personally think they look great. Windflowers come in Red, Orange, and White seeds, and you can make Pink, Blue, and Purple hybrids. Pink and Blue are straightforward, but purple hybrids take some time to make.
How to get each hybrid
| Hybrid Color | Parent 1 | Parent 2 | Chance | Other possible colors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pink | Red (seed) | Orange (seed) | 100% | - |
| Blue | White (seed) | White (seed) | 25% | White (seed), White |
| Red (Special) | Blue | Red (seed) | 100% | - |
| Red (Special) | Pink | Blue | 25% | Pink (Special), Orange, White (seed) |
| Pink (Special) | Pink | Blue | 25% | Red (Special), Orange, White (seed) |
| Purple | Red (Special) | Red (Special) | 6.25% | All |
| Purple | Pink (Special) | Pink (Special) | 6.25% | All |
To Mass Produce Purple Windflowers
Purple are the rarest of the windflower variety. They are tricky, but follow this guide and you will soon have tons of them. I'll break this down into two large steps: Getting Purples Fast and Transitioning to Mass Production.
Getting Purples Fast
Watch out for guides that show getting Purple windflowers from Pink hybrids. The fastest way is to create a special Red windflower hybrid that can make Purple windflowers. Here's the secret:
- Make Blue hybrid flowers from a White (seed) and a White (seed) hybridization in a dense pattern.
- Breed Blue flowers with Red (seed) flowers in one of the patterns that avoids self-cloning of the Red (seed) windflower to create Red (special) flowers.
- Provided there are no clones, 100% of the hybrids from the breeding will be Red (special) flowers.
- Plant all of the Red (special) flowers into another plot in a dense pattern. Each pair of flowers that are touching will have 6.25% of their hybrids become Purple. Take purples and go to the next section. The remaining non-purple hybrids can have any kind of genetics and should be thrown out.
- Note: if you have space on your island and really want a purple, you may take all the blue hybrids produced from this step and put them in a separate plot. 67% of them are a special Blue windflower that can make purples 25% of the time, but the other 33% will never make purples. Worst case, they produce more Blue windflowers, which are cool anyways.
Transitioning to Mass Production
The first option for mass producing Purple windflowers is to try and self-clone them (see here for more details). Once you have enough, you can put them all into a dense plot to save space. If you have plenty of space, the following method might work to get lots of Purple windflowers faster:
- Once you have a Purple windflower, take it any 4 of your Red (special) flowers to make a diagonal pattern with the purple in the middle.
- 25% of the hybrids from this plot will be Purple windflowers, which is 4x better than Step 3.
- 25% of the hybrids from this plot will be a Blue (special) windflower that can produce more purples.
- The other 50% will be Red. Some are Red (special), and some are Red with even better genes. Throw these into your Red (special) plot from Step 3 to increase your odds there.
- Note: you may get some self-cloning here, but that alright. The 4 Red (special) flowers help to increase the chances of getting the Purple windflower to breed each day.
- Move all Blue (special) and Purple windflowers from Step 1 into a separate plot. It's best to choose one that avoids self-cloning, but any of these patterns with two different parents will work.
- Now, hybrids will be 50/50 Purple/Blue, and the Blues are all more Blue (special) flowers.
- Keep building this out with the Blue/Purple from Steps 1 and 2 until it is the size you want. Once it is full, you can replace the Blue (special) windflowers with Purples, which make more Purples 100% of the time with other Purple flowers.
- Important: Do not let any of the Blue (special) windflowers touch, because these can produce the regular blues which can't make Purple windflowers.
To Mass Produce Blue Windflowers
If all you want is a lot of blue windflowers, the method to mass produce them is very straightforward. However, know that if you want to make purple windflowers, you will actually make plenty of blue along the way, and it might be better to follow the steps to mass produce purple windflowers.
- Plant White (seed) windflowers in a dense pattern.
- When White hybrids appear, throw them away (or sell, or plant elsewhere), because some of them are White windflowers that will never produce Blue.
- 25% of the hybrids in this areas will be Blue hybrids. Once a blue hybrid appears, go to step 2.
- Replace White (seed) flowers with Blue hybrid
- A Blue hybrid bred with a White (seed) is twice as likely (50%) to spawn a Blue.
- Once you get another Blue hybrid, go to step 3.
- Continue replacing White (seed) flowers with Blue hybrids, starting with the White (seed) flowers that touch the most Blue flowers, then those touching the most other White (seed) flowers.
- A Blue hybrid bred with a Blue hybrid will only spawn a Blue (4x as likely as the White + White combination).
Eventually, after repeating step 3 many times, the entire flower bed will be Blue flowers. At this point, every hybrid in this area will also be Blue, and you will be mass producing Blue flowers!
Details: Genetics of each flower
Windflowers use 3 genes: R, O, W.
| Name | Genetics |
|---|---|
| White (seed) | rr-oo-Ww |
| Red (seed) | RR-oo-WW |
| Orange (seed) | rr-OO-WW |
| Blue | rr-oo-ww |
| Pink | rr-oo-ww |
| Pink (special) | Rr-Oo-Ww |
| Red (special) | Rr-oo-Ww |
| Blue (special) | Rr-oo-ww |
| Purple | RR-**-ww |
* indicates that this gene can be anything.