Stardew Valley is a great game focused on bringing life to your grandfather’s old farm. Along the way to turning the farm into a thriving home, you’ll meet a ton of unique characters living in town. One of those characters, Demetrius, is the town’s scientist who studies the valley’s local wildlife. After you get a total of 25,000g in total earnings, he will visit your farm and tell you that he would like to use the cave to research different specimens. He will give you the option to choose between fruit bats or mushrooms. Most new players in Stardew valley find themselves wondering which is better, the mushroom or bats? Here’s our guide to help you decide which one to pick!

If you’re interested in more Stardew Valley content, check out our other guides below!

Foraging Skill Guide

Combat Skill Guide

Farming Skill Guide

Fishing Skill Guide

Mining Skill Guide

What if I let Demetrius Grow Mushrooms?

Cave mushrooms

If you tell Demetrius to grow mushrooms, six plots will be added to the cave. These plots will grow five different kinds of mushrooms – common mushrooms, red mushrooms, purple mushrooms, chanterelles, and morels. Here are the percent chances for each mushroom type.

Common Mushroom – 69.8%

Red Mushroom – 12.3%

Morel – 8.1%

Chanterelle – 7.3%

Purple Mushroom – 2.5%

Cave mushrooms can be harvested every two days. The morning after Demetrius sets them up you can start harvesting and again every two days after that. If you miss a harvest, the mushrooms will still be there the next day but you will have missed out on a harvest. The only other ways to get mushrooms besides letting Demetrius plant them in your cave is by foraging in the caves, the secret woods, or foraging above ground. These methods are not as reliable as just letting him grow mushrooms in the cave, however.

Another lesser-known way to get mushrooms is from a random event in the Fall. In the Fall, there is a small chance that an already fully grown tree will turn into a mushroom tree. Upon harvest, mushroom trees will give the player 5 to 6 red or purple mushrooms. Mushroom trees do not drop seeds and can not be farmed like normal. Instead, they have a chance to spread seeds to nearby areas like normal trees.

Mushrooms from the cave will always be of normal quality, even if you have taken the Botanist profession. You will also not get any experience from harvesting the cave mushrooms and the Gatherer profession does not award double mushrooms.

What if I let Demetrius House Fruit Bats?

Fruit Bats

The other choice you have is to let Demetrius use the cave to house fruit bats. If you pick this option, the bats will occasionally leave fruit in the cave for you to pick up. Fruit found in the cave can be of any quality, unlike mushrooms. You also get 7 foraging experience points for each fruit picked up from the cave floor. Here is a list of the fruits you can find in the cave and their percent chance to appear.

Wild Plum – 20%

Blackberry – 20%

Salmonberry – 20%

Spice Berry – 20%

Cherry – 3.6%

Pomegranate – 3.6%

Peach – 3.6%

Orange – 3.6%

Apricot – 3.6%

Apple – 2%

So, Mushroom or Bats in Stardew Valley?

There is a clearly better choice when it comes to deciding between mushrooms or bats, but that is not to say you should always pick the better option. It depends on your playstyle too!

Reliability

The fruit bats provide fruit randomly, it is not a set amount. The fruits, however, can be from any season which can be useful at times. The randomness and inconsistency of the bats can sometimes be annoying.

If you pick mushrooms you will always get 6 random mushrooms every two days. This means that you will get more mushrooms than fruit, but the fruit is a great choice for making artisan goods and helps complete the artisan bundle in the pantry.

Life Elixir

If you plan on getting fruit trees, the fruit bats will eventually become near useless since you can just harvest the fruit you need. Mushrooms cannot be farmed and by picking the mushrooms you gain a constant source of ingredients for the life elixir. The life elixir restores your character to full HP no matter how low it is and gives a ton of energy making it extremely useful in the caves.

In order to craft a life elixir you need level 2 combat and the following ingredients:

Red Mushroom

Purple Mushroom

Morel

Chanterelle

While the purple mushroom does have a low spawn rate, picking mushrooms for the cave can be the easiest way of obtaining them in the game.

At the end of the day in Stardew Valley, the choice between mushroom or bats is up to you. Make sure you really consider the pros and cons of both sides since this is a permanent choice!