Rotten Turnips Are Actually Super Useful in ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’

In the popular Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, fruit can play a surprisingly large role in your day-to-day life. You start out with only one type of fruit tree on your island, but with time, you can have a full-fledged orchard and grow apples, oranges, pears, oranges, peaches, cherries, and coconuts.

In addition to selling fruit to make some money, you can also use the fruit as a crafting item, plus you can eat the fruit in order to get super-muscles and dig up trees or destroy giant rocks. And today, we’re going to be talking about rotten fruit. In previous Animal Crossing games, rotten fruit was actually something you wanted for certain purposes. It looks like things are a bit different in ACNH, though.

If you haven’t played previous Animal Crossing games (specifically New Leaf), you might be very confused right now. Why would anyone want rotten fruit? The answer is actually quite simple: for bugs!

In order to complete your Critterpedia (the database of all of the bugs and fish you catch in the game), you’re going to need to catch both ants and flies. But here’s the thing: Despite being available for 24 hours a day and 365 days per year, you have to do a little bit of extra work in order to attract ants and flies to your island. That’s where the rotten fruit comes in. Well, kind of.

In New Leaf, rotten fruit would appear on perfect fruit trees if the player shook them at exactly the right time. That rotten fruit could then be used to attract flies and ants. Naturally, New Horizons players initially assumed a similar mechanic would be in play for the newest Animal Crossing game. In New Horizons, however, your fruit simply won’t turn rotten. Ever. You can drop it on the ground and leave it there for six months and it will still be just as fresh as the first day. 

So how do you get the ants and flies? Rather than waiting for rotten fruit, you’ll instead want to focus on rotten vegetables. That’s right, we’re talkin’ turnips! In order to attract flies and ants, all you have to do is buy turnips on a Sunday and don’t sell them before the next Sunday. You can sell some of them, but leave one on your island and let it turn rotten.

If you do, you’ll attract flies and ants and be able to complete your Critterpedia. You will sacrifice some of that sweet turnip money, but to the completionist, it’s worth it.

You can also attract flies by leaving trash out on the ground. Next time you catch a boot, rusty can, or a tire, try leaving it on the ground for a couple of days in order to attract bugs. Catch them using your trusty net, and dispose of the trash at your leisure (or use it to craft furniture for your island).

It’s possible that rotten fruit could be added to the game in an upcoming update, but as of right now, that hasn’t been officially announced. We can’t say we’re too bummed about that — imagine how smelly your island could get if it was filled with rotten fruit!