Tutorials/Wheat farming

This page is about wheat farming. For information on the systematic production of other resources, see Renewable Resources.

File:Cropsfullygrown.png

Crops ready to be harvested

Farming is a feature in Indev, Infdev, Alpha and Beta implemented on February 6th, 2010. It allows players to create farmland, plant seeds and harvest crops of wheat. Seeds can be found by using a hoe on grass tiles or by harvesting fully grown wheat.

Farmland Tiles

File:Mcseeds.png

Seeds over dehydrated farmland

To begin farming you need to craft a hoe. Like all tools, hoes will have increased durability depending on the material they are made of. The hoe can be used to till dirt or grass into farmland by right-clicking. A farmland block will be created dry unless it is near water. If it is near water the block will become hydrated, causing crops to grow faster (this is explained further in the next section). Using a hoe on grass blocks will not only convert it to a farmland tile, but it also has a chance to produce Seeds. These which can be planted in any farmland block where they will eventually grow into wheat. Seeds planted on hydrated farmland will grow faster than those on non-hydrated blocks. Using Bone Meal on crops fertilizes the tile and instantly makes the wheat ready for harvest. This allows you to harvest wheat right after planting seeds, making the process of farming much faster. Crops can also be grown at night by placing torches next to them, which will also prevent Mobs from spawning near them.

Notch has stated that some patterns of crops are more productive than others.

Hydrated Farmland Tiles

A hydrated Farmland block is the preferred block for farming. Hydrated farmland will yield a fully developed wheat crop in a little over a single day/night cycle on a Normal or Woodland themed map (Indev only).

For a Farmland Block to become hydrated, the following conditions must be met:

Water at the same level, or one block above the farmland block. Water one block below will not work.
Water up to four blocks away, including diagonals.
The blocks between the farmland block and the water make no difference.

For example: in a nine by nine grid of Farmland blocks, in which the center block is water, all will hydrate.

Farmland Block Decay

Under certain condition a farmland block will "decay", becoming a dirt block regardless of what it was initially. This will occur if any of the following occur:

If the player or any animal walks on the block too much. (In the September 18th, 2010 patch, "sneaking" was added, among other things this allows you to walk on farmland blocks without destroying them. This did not work in SMP until Beta 1.3_01, when it was fixed).
If the farmland block is dehydrated for too long.

In Infdev a farmland block will not decay if something is planted on it unless it is walked on or the farmland block is in complete darkness (Light level 0). The best way to change a farmland block into a grass block is to wait for it to turn back into dirt. Grass will then grow on it as it normally does.

Harvesting

Crops can be harvested at any time by left-click with any tool, but they will only yield wheat when the crop has changed from green to brown (second picture below). Harvesting crops at this time will yield between zero to three seeds, and one item of wheat, which can be crafted into Bread, Cake or Cookies.

Note: In earlier versions of the game, such as /indev/, wheat ceased growing one stage earlier (0x6 in the above image), at which point you were able to harvest wheat.

A ready to harvest crop of wheat:

In some cases crops may be ready to harvest, despite looking too young to harvest. By placing and/or remove a torch a player can force the neighboring tiles to visually update instantly, instead of at the normal pace of the game. A faster method for wheat is to right click the soil/crop with a hoe; this will not use any charges unless the ground underneath is not tilled. These techniques only update the appearance of the crops, which occurs naturally through harvesting neighboring crops; it will not speed up the growth of crops.

As the water is hidden, seeds and wheat are easily gathered by running along the central lane, and tilled tiles are not trampled in the process. The method works for Sugar Cane as well. Shown here with some wall blocks removed to show where water should be placed.

Growth and Destruction

Crops will only grow under the following conditions:

If they are receiving at least 9 (light)
If there is at least one block of space above the height of the fully grown crop (glass counts as empty)

Crops do not need water to grow, however crops can also be destroyed if the farmland block they are placed on reverts to dirt.

If you right click crops with Bone Meal selected, they will grow into full crops instantly.

Growth Rate

For the fastest growth, watered farmland with crops on all neighboring squares or in rows is ideal. This increases the growth rate amount to the maximum of 4.5, as described below in pseudocode. This is then used every time the crop block ticks which will then grow if a random number generated from zero up to int(100/growthRate) is zero.

def getGrowthRate(crop):
    if blockBelow(crop).isWatered():
        growthRate = 3.0
    else:
        growthRate = 1.0

    for neighbor in horizontalNeighbors(crop):
        if neighbor.isCrop():
            if BlockBelow(neighbor).isWatered():
                growthRate += 0.75
            else:
                growthRate += 0.25

    if (CropsOnXNeighbors(crop) and CropsOnYNeighbors(crop)) or CropsOnXYNeighbors(crop):
        growthRate = growthRate / 2.0

    return growthRate

Note: As of Beta 1.2, you can use Bonemeal to fertilize crops, making them ready instantly.

Note: As of Beta 1.4, crops grow a little bit faster.

Optimal Patterns

The following crop placement patterns all lead to an optimal growth rate of 4.5 for the middle block:

File:Crafting square Wheat.png
File:Crafting square Wheat.png
File:Crafting square Wheat.png

File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png

A Sub-optimal Pattern

The following crop placement will lead to halved growth rate for the middle block (see last part of pseudo code in previous section):

File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png
File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png
File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png

Tips

Crops can be harvested quickly and easily from large farms in a very short period of time by redirecting water over the crops. As of Beta 1.5, fully grown crops will drop up to 3 seeds (here), but immature crops will not drop seeds.

Trivia

Previously there was a bug which would allow you to destroy any block by tiling soil under it, seen here.
Moving water over crops will destroy them and drop wheat if they are ready to harvest; farmland is unaffected.
Farmland blocks take the same amount of time to break as Dirt blocks, regardless of the tool. Shovels do not break farmland blocks any faster than breaking them by hand, though swords will break them a bit faster. It is unknown if this is a bug.
You cannot place torches on the top of farmland blocks.
Saplings can't be planted on farmland; however, if a sapling is planted, then the block below it is tilled, the sapling will remain.
Light can shine through farmland.
You can still turn dirt into farmland if you use the hoe on the underside of a dirt block.
As of Beta 1.3, crops may not be planted within four blocks radius of redstone ore