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 destroying tall grass 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. If it is near water the block will become hydrated, causing crops to grow faster (this is explained further in the next section). Seeds are obtained by destroying tall grass. These 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 aggressive Mobs from spawning near them. Nonetheless, if there is grass near the torches, this could also allow passive mobs to spawn, and they could destroy the crop by walking on it.

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.

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

Water at the same level farmland block is on.
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.

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 5.5, as described below in pseudocode. Every second, crop can grow up 1 level with a probability of growthRate/100 (maximum 5.5%).

getGrowthRate(crop)
{
    if (crop.getBlockBelow().isHydrated())
        growthRate = 4.0;
    else
        growthRate = 2.0;

    for (farmland in crop.getFarmlandIn8BlocksBelow()) //Immediately surrounding Farmland with crops
    {
        if (farmland.isHydrated())
            growthRate = growthRate + 0.75
        else
            growthRate = growthRate + 0.25
    }

    if (crop.hasNeighborCropOnNS() and crop.hasNeighborCropOnEW()) //If (north OR south) AND (east OR west) have crops
        growthRate = growthRate / 2;
    else if (crop.hasNeighborCropDiagonally()) //If any immediately diagonal square has a crop
        growthRate = growthRate / 2;

    return growthRate;
}

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

Note: It doesn't matter if there are crops on neighboring farmland or not.

Optimal Patterns

The following crop placement patterns all lead to an optimal growth rate of 5.5 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 growth rate of 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
File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png File:Crafting square Wheat.png

Automatic farming using pistons

Planted wheat can be "pushed" out of it's place and turned into item form using a piston. This can be used to harvest crops almost automatically, as all you have to do is pick up the wheat. Here is an example of using pistons to farm:

When the pistons are activated, the planted wheat is pushed into the water, which then carries the items to an easily collectible area. However, the farmland will instantly revert to the standard dirt block; therefore, you will have to till the ground after every harvest.

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, but immature crops will not drop seeds. For a tutorial on a farm that harnesses this method, click here.

Trivia

In versions prior to Beta 1.3, there was a bug which would allow you to destroy any block (even bedrock) by tiling and planting seeds under it.
If running water flows into wheat, it will drop seeds(and wheat if mature), but only if the water flows into the wheat rather than dropping onto it from above.
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.
Dirt can be hoed into farmland from any side of the block.
Prior to Beta 1.6 and the introduction of tall grass, seeds were obtained by using a hoe on grass.
Rain will hydrate farmland though not quickly and apparently randomly.
You cannot light farmland blocks on fire.