How to set up a profitable hemp farm from scratch — planter setup, power, water, genetics and how to scale cloth output efficiently.
Hemp is the foundation of most Rust farms. Cloth is essential for armour, bags and medical supplies — and a well-run hemp farm with god clone genetics can produce hundreds of cloth per hour passively from inside your base. This guide walks through everything you need to build one from the ground up.
Hemp output is directly tied to your clone's genome. The G genes control grow speed (more harvests per hour) and the Y genes control how many clones you get per harvest. Here's how different genomes compare:
Infrastructure is the part most new farmers underestimate. Get this wrong and your plants will stop growing or grow at reduced speed without obvious feedback.
Rust's watering system has a counterintuitive rule: water above ~75% causes overwatering, which actually reduces plant happiness below 100%. To hit perfect conditions, you want water to sit around the 75% mark — not maxed out.
Water catchers produce ~180L per hour outdoors in rain. Hemp at 0 W genes uses very little water. A GGGYYY clone in a 9-plant planter needs roughly 162L/hr total at standard consumption. One water catcher per planter covers this comfortably — the excess drains away, keeping water from overflowing.
| Farm size | Plants | Power needed | Solar panels (small) | Clones/hr approx |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 planter | 9 | 50W | 2 | ~23/hr |
| 4 planters | 36 | 200W | 8 | ~91/hr |
| 8 planters | 72 | 400W | 16 | ~182/hr |
| 12 planters | 108 | 600W | — | ~272/hr — needs wired power |
The beauty of a god clone farm is it's completely self-sustaining. Every harvest produces 4 clones per plant — far more than you need to maintain the farm. The surplus is pure output.
Pick up every wild hemp seed you find. Prioritise seeds with G and Y genes. Plant 1–2 planters with your best seeds using the God Clone Planner layout. Your goal is to get a god clone before anyone else — it gives you a huge advantage for the rest of the wipe.
Use the planner to work out whether you can get a god clone in Gen 1 (one round) or need Gen 2 (two rounds). Even poor seeds can usually produce a god clone in two rounds. Run the breed, clone the result, and start filling planters.
Once you have a god clone, every harvest produces 4 clones. With 36 plants (4 planters), that's 144 clones per harvest cycle — you can fill new planters every 1h 35m. Scale as fast as your power and water infrastructure allows.
A 4-planter GGGYYY farm produces around 91 cloth per hour. At that rate you'll accumulate cloth faster than you can use it for personal gear. Here's what it's actually used for:
Road sign jacket and road sign kavu — high tier armour requiring 20–25 cloth each. Craft and sell these for scrap. Road sign sets are in high demand throughout the wipe.
Bandages — 15 cloth each, crafted with no workbench. Easy to produce in bulk and sell at vending machines near monuments for scrap.
Medical syringes — require cloth among other ingredients, high value medical item.
Sleeping bags — only 30 cloth for a bag you can place as a spawn point near monuments. Sell bulk bags to raiders and roaming players.