Farmer/Guides

Scarecrows
Occasionally while gathering cereals you will be attacked by a Cereal Protector, also known as a Scarecrow. Originally intended as an anti-bot device (only able to harvest cereals, the bot cannot fight the scarecrow, which results in the death of the character using the bot), the Scarecrows have become an advantage to farmers. When defeated they drop a bag of the cereal you were reaping when attacked, but has a 100pp lock which means only P2P characters get a bag. Double-click on the bag to receive 50 of that cereal.

Locations
Pay To Play - Cania Plains is seen as a good place to harvest cereals due to the abundance of most cereal types. So is the The Ingalsses' Fields

Free To Play - The Astrub Fields (north of Astrub, the main Free To Play area) contain abundant amounts of wheat and a fairly large number of higher level cereals.

See Harvestable Cereals

Guide Unassisted and/or no money spent :
Although you may be tempted to sell the cereals you collect, it is recommended that you store them all in the bank. These can then be used for recipes when you are a higher level.

Pay To Play

Recommended places to harvest: The Cania Fields and The Ingalsses' Fields.

At level 1 Harvest Wheat until level 10.

At level 10 Harvest Barley until level 20

At level 20 Harvest Oats until level 30

At level 30 Harvest Hop until level 50 *Note at level 40 you can Harvest Flax but as it is not used in Wheatmeal I would continue with Harvesting Hop*

At level 50 Harvest Rye

You can then begin creating Wheatmeal, the highest level farmer recipe until level 100. It's therefore recommended that you level by creating wheatmeal using the recipe 2 Wheat 2 Barley 2 Oats 2 Hop 2 Rye which you should have banked in your early levels.

Note: If you are also a baker and are using the cereals harvested in early levels, it might be faster to harvest Hemp or Malt from level 80 on. You need to collect 5 types of cereal for Wheatmeal, and every craft gives 100 xp to the profession. Malt gives 40 xp and Hemp 45 and by level 80 the gathering time is down to 4s.

Free To Play

Recommended places to harvest: Astrub 5,-26 (wheat), 5,-24 (wheat, barley and oats). Essentially anywhere in Astrub Fields.

At level 1 reap wheat until level 10. At this point you may still be in Incarnam, however because there is not much barley there it's recommended you journey to Astrub at farming level 10. However remember that you cannot return to Incarnam at character level 16 or above.

At Level 10 harvest Barley until Level 20.

At level 20 harvest Oats until level 30.

At level 30 you can start harvesting Hop.

Guide Assisted and/or money spent :
At level 1 Grind White Flour until level 10, White Flour uses 2 Wheat 2 Rye

At level 10 Grind Minx Flour until level 20, Minx Flour uses 2 Wheat 2 Barley 2 Rye

At level 20 Grind Peasant Flour until level 40, Peasant Flour uses 2 Wheat 2 Barley 2 Oats 2 Rye

At level 40 Grind Wheatmeal until level 100, Wheatmeal uses 2 Wheat 2 Barley 2 Oats 2 Hop 2 Rye

A good way to move even quicker between bank and the grinding machine. Make sure you have the The Milicluster Zaap (5,7) memorize (save) and have Bontarian Intercity-Express Potions or Brakmarian Intercity-Express Potions and Recall Potions, take out an even number for each of the 5 cereals. (For example 100 Wheat, 100 Oats, 100 Barley, 100 Hop, 100 Rye). Use the recall potions to go to the grinding machine located 1 map up from the zaap you have saved, when you finish grinding use a Brakmar/Bonta city potion and use the zappi to get to the bank to leave the flour just made and get more cereals, and then repeat it.
 * Transportation

Manufacture quest
If you're no higher than character level 15 and profession level 5, you can repeat the quest Manufacture for Poss'Ybel Nhin in the side room of the Incarnam Inn (3, 3). Each time, give her five Wheat Flours, whether you ground them personally or not, to receive 75 job experience. 11 repetitions of the quest, thus 55 Wheat Flours, are sufficient to get you from profession level 1 to 6.