This page details everything you need to know about how to cultivate plants in No Man’s Sky. We’ll cover how to power Hydroponic Trays and Bio-Domes to facilitate seed growth, where to find rare seeds and the materials used to plant them, and how to harvest Carbon from Standing Planters.

How to Use Hydroponic Trays in No Man’s Sky¶

One of the main method for cultivating plants in No Man’s Sky is by using Hydroponic Trays. The blueprint for these can be purchased from the Construction Research Station on board the Space Anomaly. Once you have the blueprint, you can find it in the Advanced Technology section of the build menu. There are two forms of Hydroponic Trays: a regular and a large. The regular tray allows you to plant one seed, while the large one allows you to plant four. You will need to connect these to a power source to ensure that the seeds keep growing, such as a Biofuel Reactor or Solar Panel. You can see our guide on How to Create a Power Grid for more information on how to use different kinds of power generators.

The seeds that you can plant in a Hydroponic Tray can all be acquired from the Construction Research Station on board the Space Anomaly. These are listed in the table below, including the materials required to craft them from the blueprint. Once you have the relevant materials to craft a seed, you can then select it in the Advanced Technology section of the build menu, and place it within a Hydroponic Tray to begin the growing process. The time it takes to produce the finished product will vary between the seeds, as will the yield of each seed. The details for each of these factors are also shown in the table below.

Seeds Available for Cultivation in NMS¶

Icon	Cultivated Flora	Materials Required	Growth Time	Harvest Quantity
	Gamma Weed	50x Gamma Root, 25x Uranium	4 hours	50
	Fungal Cluster	50x Fungal Mould, 25x Ammonium	4 hours	50
	Frostwort	50x Frost Crystal, 25x Dioxite	1 hour	50
	Venom Urchin	100x Emeril, 50x Gold	3 hours 30 miniutes	1
	Solar Vine	50x Solanium, 25x Phosphorus	16 hours	50
	Gutrot Flower	40x Faecium	4 hours	25
	Gravitino Host	25x Chromatic Metal, 120x Silver, 25x Magnetised Ferrite	2 hours	1
	Mordite Root	40x Mordite	8 hours	25
	Echinocactus	50x Cactus Flesh, 25x Pyrite	16 hours	100
	Star Bramble	50x Star Bulb, 25x Paraffinum	4 hours	25
	Albumen Pearl Orb	60x Indium, 20x Paraffinum	2 hours	1
	NipNip	1x NipNip Bud, 20x Faecium	4 hours	1

A Hydroponic Tray can be placed in almost any indoor environment, including inside Freighters. Since they are powered by power generators, they don’t need to be in a room with access to sunlight. Note that many of the rare seed materials required for the above blueprints (such as Star Bulb, Solanium, and Frost Crystal) will require a Haz-Mat Gauntlet to harvest. The blueprint for this Exosuit upgrade can be purchased from the Exosuit module / upgrade merchant on board the Space Anomaly.

How to Use Bio-Domes in No Man’s Sky¶

The Bio-Dome provides a slightly more efficient method of cultivating seeds than Hydroponic Trays. You can find the blueprint for a Bio-Dome from the Construction Research Station on board the Space Anomaly, and then found in the Large Structures section of the build menu. The Bio-Dome requires 50 kPs to power, but it provides up to 16 slots for any of the above seeds to be planted and cultivated. A Bio-Dome can be placed indoors or outdoors in a base structure, but they can’t be constructed on Freighters. Keep in mind that you will need to use Corridor structures to create a door adjacent to the Bio-Dome, allowing you to enter it. These can be found in the same build menu just below where you find the Bio-Dome.

A useful feature of the Bio-Domes comes in the form of a display panel at the centre, which is mounted from the ceiling of the dome. This can be used to harvest all of the plants in the dome at the same time, so long as they’ve reached a sufficient growth stage.

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(1 of 2) Hydroponic Trays provide a simple way to cultivate a few seeds.

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Hydroponic Trays provide a simple way to cultivate a few seeds. (left), Bio-Domes are more efficient than Hydroponic Trays, and can cultivate 16 seeds at the same time. (right)

How to Use Standing Planters in No Man’s Sky¶

The Standing Planters are a lot more simple than Hydroponic Trays or Bio-Domes, since they only produce one form of generic flora. There is no specific name for this, but once you construct a Standing Planter you will be able to harvest Carbon from it, so long as it is powered by a power generator. The blueprint for a Standing Planter can be purchased using Salvaged Data from the Agricultural Modules menu of the Construction Research Station on board the Space Anomaly. You can then find them in the same build menu as the Hydroponic Trays.

Once you’ve constructed a Standing Planter in your base and hooked it up to a power generator, you will be able to harvest roughly 100 Carbon from it every 10 minutes. You will sometimes get slightly less or slightly more than this, but if you have numerous Standing Planters setup in a room, you can harvest a lot of Carbon in a short amount of time. This effectively gives you an infinite source of Carbon so long as you maintain power to the planters.

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(1 of 3) You can use the Analysis Visor to inspect a Standing Planter and check when the next harvest is due.