Why is my touch function not proceeding past this point with no error?

In this line you are comparing a player object to a string. if player == otherpart.Parent.Name then You probably want player.Name instead.

Edit: I mocked up your setup in studio just now and all I really had to change to get it to work was the above. This is what I have:

game:WaitForChild("Players")

local folder = script.Parent
local toolName = "realTool"
local currency = "DNA"
local start = true


local function collectitem(obj, otherpart)
	print("we got here")
	local player = game.Players:FindFirstChild(otherpart.Parent.Name)
	print("here too")
	if player.Name == otherpart.Parent.Name then
		print("wow") -- script doesnt go here, it just stops and I cant figure out why
		if player.Character:FindFirstChild("Tool") then
			print("got this far")
		end
	end
end


for _, obj in pairs(folder:GetChildren()) do
	if obj:IsA("Model") and obj:FindFirstChild("hit") then
		obj.hit.Touched:Connect(function(otherpart)
			if otherpart.Parent.active.Value == 1 then
				collectitem(obj, otherpart)
				print("plant cut") 
				print(otherpart.Parent.active.Value)
			else
				print("plant not cut")
				print(otherpart)
				print(otherpart.Parent.active.Value)
			end
		end)
	end
end

I have a model in workspace with the script, and then model's that have parts named "hit". I give the player a tool named "Tool" and it only prints "got this far" when the tool is equipped. I also put a number value into the character with the value of 1 so that the first part of the hit detection function runs. Hope that helps you in some way, the comparison is really the only thing I can see being wrong without knowing more about how your project is set up.