The new server is a complete rewrite of the crops system.
First of all, there is a 13 day year. 2 days winter, 3 days spring, 6 days summer, and three days of fall. Days will either be 10 or 15 real minutes. With 15 minute days, a year is 3 hours, 15 minutes.
Everyday the tempature changes, a few posts above can be seen average tempatures for each day under "avg".
Anytime the tempature goes under 32 degrees, all crops die.
The closer the tempature is to 77 degrees (i searched "optimal plant tempature" lol) the quicker the plants will grow.
Growth is affected by hydration as well, watering is also changed a lot from the old server.
You water crops with a watering can (the old watering cans will be replaced with hoes, to plant new crops) and you keep watering them. If you over water them, they'll suffer a penality, if you underwater them they'll grow slower, if they completly run out of water, they die. The soil changes color with hydration.
Fertility stays more or less unchanged, it just effects yeild, maybe growth speed.
If you do it just right, some crops might get two harvests in a season, others like blueberries and grapes might take a few years (a few hours to a real life day) to grow to full, but once they do, they'll give many harvests a season.
There's other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting, and I'm sorry that's a lot to read.
It's supposed to be more realistic. With a planting season, and a harvest season, rather than just planting and harvesting all year round.