Soulleaf Seed

Soulleaf is one of the few direct and stable incomes of Ancient Essence. It takes approximately an hour to fully grow, and 20 minutes to regrow. This means, even if not taking first grow time into account, you will be getting an average of 0.54 Essence per minute, which is a miniscule amount.

If you want to grow it in hydroponics, you will need the best possible fertilizer - Superior Fertilizer, which is very hard to craft, and even harder to automate. Using Aeroponic Tubings, re-harvesting it with Harvester Turrets, and then collecting the harvest with Grabbers is an automated way of growing Soulleaf without Superior Fertilizer, but is has low yield and a very long growing time.

A single Hydro Tray with Superior Fertilizer + Organic Soup as a Tray Liquid will yield an approximate of 37.5 Essence per minute.

A Duplicator can supply slightly more than 20 Soulleaf Hydro Trays with Superior Fertilizer. You can also simply extract duplicated Superior Fertilizer in a Precursor Data Box which will yield ~6.5 Essence, or Precursor Mainframe which will yield ~16.5 Essence.