I will openly admit I'm not the Harvest Moon master yet but I have to disagree. Once I lost my runeye balance the crops in the caves started to die. I read on another site that the runeyes cause both the outside and caves inside to die off if not balanced correctly.

I bet it is! I think you have to fail with the runeeys in order to know this, sadly.

it is true if any area has no runies it will effect all crops, those inside or outside of caves. Lol i should know.

Runeys affect crops everywhere, , as long as a small amount, say five of each runey, is in each zone you'll be "fine", but to really speed things up, to have crops everywhere growing fast, have 35 of each runey in each zone, or if you just care about your homestead just have 35 of each in that while keeping the others just...not dead

Really have to disagree with you there Daydreaming. At one point, my Runey population dropped down to red at Mist's House. I didnt really care since every other field was fine, but when I started to grow crops down in the ruins for RP, I found that my radishes took at least 7 days to grow rather than 4. It appears that if the area in which the Runeys are dieing holds an entrance to a ruin, the ruins will be directly affected by the lack of runeys, making it alot harder to grow crops in there.

I find that not true 'cause mist's house had 40 of each runey and my green ruins crops were slow and dieing:angry:

And I find that not possible, because after I raised the Runey population back to normal, my crops made a surprising comeback. If your serious about what your saying, check if any areas near the ruins are dieing or dead. It's possible, though I've never experienced it, that it could be affecting the ruins as well. I'm pretty sure that if ANY area is completely dead, you automatically get penalty with your crops.