In Stardew Valley, sprinkler irrigation is the way to go. With a good sprinkler placed amidst your crops, you won't have to spend as much time, energy, and effort watering them manually with your watering can.

Sprinklers come in three different levels, covering a wider and wider range of tiles around them. Here, we'll cover each one's range, how to get them, and some other things worth knowing. Additionally, we'll go over some late-game sprinkler enhancements that you can obtain.

Updated December 22, 2023 by Jacqueline Zalace: Stardew Valley sprinklers can be a lifesaver, especially if you have other things to do besides water crops all morning. We've updated this guide with tweaks to the formatting to help you learn the ways of irrigation in no time.

Sprinkler Types

There are three sprinklers in Stardew Valley, with each one being more powerful than the one before it. This means it will cover more tiles, watering more crops and saving space. The Stardew Valley sprinklers are as follows.

• Sprinkler
• Quality Sprinkler
• Iridium Sprinkler

Sprinklers On The Beach Farm

Sprinklers will not work on the sandy parts of the beach farm! They will only work on the 'dirt' areas; crops that grow in the sand will need to be manually watered.

There are some beach farm mods that allow you to use sprinklers on the sand, such as Allow Beach Sprinklers.

Although technically a giant beach, the Ginger Island farm can have sprinklers. On this tropical farm, you can find a giant dirt patch where sprinklers are used normally.

Basic Sprinklers

The basic sprinkler is just called a "sprinkler," and it's the first one you'll probably obtain. It covers only four tiles — one tile up, one down, one to the left, and one to the right. You'll learn the recipe for the basic sprinkler at farming level two, which is how you earn other sprinklers as well.

You might also find sprinklers for sale at the Traveling Cart, which appears in the Cindersap Forest on Fridays and Saturdays.

It'll be tough to cover a full field of crops with the basic sprinkler, as they don't cover much total area. However, they're better than doing it manually, as long as you have enough resources to craft them. Even though an upgraded watering can cover more tiles than these sprinklers, it requires energy and refilling, whereas sprinklers are automatic.

Quality Sprinklers

Quality sprinklers are the next best and will seem like a major upgrade compared to the basic sprinkler. They cover eight total tiles — up, down, left, right, and each of the four diagonals. This creates a small square of 3x3, with the quality sprinkler in the center.

It's often recommended that you make your first few crop-growing areas in 3x3 grids, so that when you get your first quality sprinklers, they'll fit perfectly into the middle without the need for rearranging.

Like the basic sprinklers, quality sprinklers can be purchased from the Traveling Cart sometimes.

Iridium Sprinklers

Easily the best sprinklers in the game, iridium sprinklers are fantastic and will probably be what you strive for as your farm develops. Iridium sprinklers cover 24 total tiles.

This is another full square of tiles around the inner eight that are covered by a quality sprinkler, or a 5x5 grid with the iridium sprinkler in the center.

A reliable way to obtain iridium sprinklers is from Krobus' shop once you unlock the Sewers. He sells one every Friday for 10,000 gold.

Nozzles & Enrichers In Qi's Walnut Room

In the post-game, you'll find some cool new items that are upgrades for your sprinklers. These are the pressure nozzle and the enricher. These can be attached to sprinklers for different effects, and you'll find them in the list of rewards at Qi's Walnut Room.

How To Unlock Qi's Walnut Room

To unlock Qi's Walnut Room, you'll need to begin your adventure on Ginger Island and start collecting Golden Walnuts.

Once you unlock the west side of the island with the island farm, you'll find Qi's Walnut room in the far northwest of the area. You'll need to collect 100 Golden Walnuts to unlock it.

After gaining access to Qi's special room, you can take on quests to earn Qi Gems, which are then spent on the right-hand board for special items, like these sprinkler upgrades.

How To Use Pressure Nozzles

If the iridium sprinkler still isn't covering the range you're looking for, never fear! The pressure nozzle will increase the range of your sprinklers even more.

Pressure nozzles increase the range of the sprinkler they're placed on by one tile in each direction. So, they'll cover a square as follows.

With pressure nozzles, you can cover the entire Greenhouse with only one farmable tile lost to a sprinkler.

This attachment can be purchased from Qi's special shop at a price of 20 Gems for four pressure nozzles. Additionally, while completing the Danger in the Deep quest (or after you've activated the Shrine of Challenge), slimes may drop a pressure nozzle, but it's very rare.

How To Use Enrichers

Enrichers, when placed on a sprinkler, can be loaded with fertilizer like a chest. Any tilled soil nearby that the sprinkler can reach will be fertilized automatically with whichever fertilizer you've loaded into the enricher.

You can, as mentioned, purchase these for Qi Gems (20 Gems for four enrichers) at Qi's Walnut Room. But, you can also find them as monster drops while under the effects of Qi's Skull Cavern quest challenges.

Best Sprinkler Layouts

Now, let's take a look at some of the best layouts for your sprinklers. As a rule of thumb, we recommend using iridium sprinklers whenever possible.

As mentioned above, it's possible to cover your entire greenhouse with sprinklers, while only losing one tile in the center. In the image above, courtesy of the official Stardew Valley Wiki, you can see the optimal layout for these sprinklers in your greenhouse. This allows you to cover nearly every space and maximize the land without wasting too many spaces.

Remember, in the greenhouse, you can place any sprinkler type on the border along the edge of the soil. If you have just a few spaces that need water, try placing basic or quality sprinklers here.

In terms of sprinklers outdoors, the best method is to keep your sprinklers as close as possible without causing any overlap. With iridium sprinklers, you can cover large spaces, maximizing each tile of tillable soil.

If you are still using the basic sprinklers, try staggering them diagonally. If you place the basic sprinklers in a grid formation, then you will have spaces in the corners of each area. Instead, place the sprinklers diagonally, as shown in the image above.

Sprinklers On The First Day Of A New Season

On the first day of a new season, your previous crops will die, and much of the dirt will go back to being un-tilled. Unless you have previous plants that grow in two different seasons, you will need to re-till and water the soil manually.

For this reason, it's important to carry around your watering can. While sprinklers are helpful, there is no way around this situation when it becomes a new season. Overall though, sprinklers work great on the other 27 days of the season.