Fruitball

The Fruitball breaks the usual seed-cost math entirely, because it was given away during the pre-update Celebrity Guest Event rather than sold. With no purchase price to recoup, every harvest is pure profit, which makes its real economic question not "is the seed worth it" but "how do I maximise output from something I can never buy again."

The decisive trait is that it is a multi-harvest crop. Unlike single-pick plants you replant constantly, the Fruitball keeps producing from one planting, so its lifetime sheckle return compounds the longer you protect the plant. That changes mutation strategy completely: it is worth investing your best multiplier mutations into a Fruitball because every future harvest inherits the buffed payout, spreading the cost of that investment across many pickings.

Because it is limited and irreplaceable, treat the Fruitball as a permanent garden fixture rather than a crop to clear and rotate. Across all progression stages this is a keep-forever plant; early players benefit from the free ongoing income, and late-game farmers prize it as a stable, no-cost base to stack rare weather and growth mutations onto for outsized long-term yield.