Of Cows and Milk

I wrote a few days ago on the JMTC forums about the directly proportional relationship between herb and lotus prices. Check out the thread if you're interested.
If you're a herbalist, you might be interested in these numbers as well:
Herbs: 1.65 per node average
Lotus: 0.0825 per node
Crystallized Life: 0.4125
The Lotus works out to about 1 Lotus per stack of herbs.

Since farmers are only willing to pick herbs until they drop to a certain price(it becomes more profitable to do dailys at a certain price point) the demand for herbs largely influences the price of Lotus.

This relationship is perfect for manipulating the alchemy market.
If you find a way to increase demand for herbs significantly, (I estimate 500 or so stacks of herbs a day, and you can easily use up that much by making Decks) Lotus prices will creep down after a while because of increased supply. Then, when lotus drops, you can buy it in bulk, stop buying herbs for a few weeks, and sell the Lotus when it's expensive again.

I found out that in economics, the phenomenon is called 'Joint Supply'

Some products or
production processes have more than one use. For instance, cows can
both provide milk and be eaten. If farmers increase the number of cows
they own in response to an increase in DEMAND for milk, they are also likely to increase, a little later, the supply of meat, causing beef prices to fall.