FarmVille Balloon Crop now in store, but unavailable to grow [UPDATE: Now available]

UPDATE: The Balloons Crop has been officially "released" as part of the New Year's Ball Drop / Party Barn event. You'll need to unlock access to planting the crop after having 10 of your friends accept your invitation to your party. Find out all of the details about this new event by clicking on this link.

If you've been looking forward to planting some of the cheerful and colorful Balloon crop seeds in FarmVille as much as we have, you'll be happy to hear that the Balloon Crop has now been spotted in the wild, via an in-game store listing that is now available for players to look at. However, that's all you can do with the crop at the moment, as it is "Locked."

The reasoning for the locked status is that a "License is needed." We'll be sure to let you know how to obtain said license as soon as we can, but in the meantime, let's take a look at the announced stats for this new crop. First, it's cheap, available to grow for just 15 coins per square. It grows for 16 hours, and you'll be able to harvest each square of ready balloons for a return of 126 coins per square.

This looks to be a fairly good crop for lower level players to jump into planting, not only due to its low price, but due to the fact that you'll gain 2 experience points for each and every square of the Balloons that you plant, which might allow some players to level up before all is said and done. Finally, the Balloons Crop can be mastered, with the first star or mastery coming after harvesting just 80 balloons.

When will the Balloons Crop be available to grow? That much is still up in the air, but we'll be sure to let you know when it unlocks, or what you'll need to do in order to unlock it, as more information becomes available.

New FarmVille Limited Edition Crop: White Poinsettia (requires seed packets)

As part of tonight's FarmVille update, we see the release of a new limited edition crop in the game that flower-lovers will definitely appreciate. The crop is the White Poinsettia, and just like the regular Poinsettia before it, it is a limited time offering that you'll need to be fast to plant and harvest if you want a chance at full mastery.

The White Poinsettias are a crop just like the Black Roses from Halloween, that must be collected in seed packets before they can be planted. You can click on the "Get" button next to the White Poinsettia crop in the store in order to "Ask for more" seed packets, with this allowing you to post a general request to your wall for your friends to see. Since this might be looked over by many players, you might try asking some of your closest neighbors personally to send you some (they are available to send in packets of 20 from the game's free gifts page).

Once you have packets of seeds, you'll be able to plant them and harvest them 16 hours later. You'll get 200 coins for each harvest, and you'll earn 2 experience points for each seed that you plant. As with other crops, the White Poinsettia can be mastered, with the first star of mastery coming at 250 harvests.