Cultivating crops in Minecraft is essential for securing a consistent supply of food and valuable resources. This guide will walk you through every crop type, detailing how to acquire seeds or items, and the specific planting techniques to maximize your agricultural output.
How Farming Crops Works in Minecraft
To begin your farming journey, you`ll need seeds or plantable items, along with prepared farmland. Standard dirt blocks won`t suffice for most crops; they require tilled soil. It`s also advisable to secure your farm plots with fences to prevent hostile mobs from damaging your crops.
How to Make Farm Plots
Crafting a hoe is the first step, as it allows you to transform dirt blocks into fertile farmland. Most crops can then be planted directly into this tilled soil. While water is crucial, a single water source block can hydrate an entire 9×9 square of farmland when positioned in the center.
Crop Farming Tips
Adequate light is vital for most crops, though it doesn`t have to be natural sunlight. Indoor farms thrive with artificial light sources. For outdoor plots, placing torches ensures continuous growth even at night.
To accelerate growth, apply bone meal directly to your plants.
Note that some crops have unique requirements, which will be detailed in their respective sections.
Each Growable Crop in Minecraft
This section provides specific instructions for cultivating each distinct crop type available in Minecraft.
How to Grow Wheat
Wheat seeds are easily acquired by breaking tall grass, making wheat one of the simplest crops to begin with. Plant these seeds on tilled farmland, ensuring proximity to a water source (a single block can hydrate a 9×9 area) and sufficient light for growth.
Wheat serves multiple purposes, including food preparation, animal breeding, and trading with villagers.
How to Grow Carrots
Carrots are planted directly, without seeds, onto tilled farmland. They adhere to the standard 9×9 water hydration rule and require light to grow. Carrots can be found in chests or looted from villages.
Carrots are versatile, used in crafting recipes, and for breeding pigs, rabbits, and villagers.
How to Grow Potatoes
Similar to carrots, potatoes are planted directly onto tilled farmland, following the 9×9 water hydration rule. Acquire potatoes from chests or villages.
Potatoes are excellent for satisfying hunger, especially when cooked into baked potatoes.
How to Grow Beetroot
Beetroot requires seeds, obtainable from villages or chests. Plant them in farm plots adhering to the same 9×9 water hydration and light requirements as wheat, carrots, and potatoes.
Beetroot is used for crafting red dye and preparing Beetroot Soup.
How to Grow Pumpkins
Pumpkin seeds are needed for cultivation, easily harvested from wild pumpkins in grassy biomes or occasionally found in chests.
Plant pumpkin seeds on farmland, observing the usual light and water needs. A key distinction is that pumpkins mature on an adjacent block, necessitating more space. While 9×9 plots work, many prefer double-row layouts for optimal growth.
Pumpkins can be baked into pumpkin pie or carved into jack o`lanterns.
How to Grow Melons
Melon seeds are essential, typically harvested from wild melons found in jungles or savanna villages, or occasionally discovered in chests.
Plant melon seeds on farmland, adhering to the same light and water conditions as pumpkins. Like pumpkins, melons require an adjacent empty block to grow their fruit.
Melons are edible and can be crafted into Glistering Melons.
How to Grow Sugar Cane
Sugar cane naturally generates along water bodies like rivers, lakes, and oceans. Harvest it by breaking the existing stalks.
Unlike typical crops, sugar cane thrives on dirt or sand blocks, but critically, it must be adjacent to water. When harvesting, break only the upper blocks of the stalk to leave the base for regrowth, eliminating the need to replant.
Sugar cane is processed into sugar and paper.
How to Grow Cocoa Beans
Cocoa beans are harvested from pods found on trees in jungle biomes. Crucially, cocoa only grows on jungle wood, including logs or planks, not necessarily full trees. Gather some jungle wood while exploring to establish your farm.
Cocoa beans are used to craft cookies and brown dye.
How to Grow Nether Wart
As its name implies, Nether wart originates solely from the Nether, typically found in bastions and fortresses. While it can be grown in the Overworld, it must be planted on soul sand, also sourced from the Nether. Notably, Nether wart requires neither water nor light to grow.
Nether wart is a crucial ingredient for brewing most potions.
How to Grow Sweet Berries
Sweet Berries are harvested from bushes native to spruce forests. They can be planted directly on dirt blocks and do not require a water source.
Sweet Berries serve as a food source and can be used to breed foxes.
How to Farm Glow Berries
Glow Berries are found on vines hanging within lush caves or occasionally in mineshaft chests.
To grow Glow Berries, place them on the underside of any block. Ensure at least a two-block vertical space for the vines to extend downwards.
While edible, Glow Berries are primarily valued as a decorative light source. Like Sweet Berries, they can also be used to breed foxes.
How to Grow Mushrooms
Mushrooms are found in various low-light environments, such as under trees, within caves, and throughout mushroom fields.
Both red and brown mushroom variants exist. Giant mushrooms, found in dark forests, yield regular mushrooms upon harvesting, matching their color.
Mushrooms thrive in low-light conditions and can be planted on dirt or stone. Allow ample space for them to spread. They are ideal for cultivation in dark indoor areas like basements, or in natural/artificial caves.
Bone meal accelerates their growth and can transform regular mushrooms into giant ones. When grown on mycelium blocks, mushrooms can even tolerate standard light conditions.
Mushrooms are key ingredients in various stew recipes.
How to Grow Fungus
Fungus, including both Crimson and Warped variants, grows naturally in their respective Nether biomes (Crimson Forest and Warped Forest) and can also be found in bastion chests. Once harvested, they are planted similarly to mushrooms, requiring no light source and growing on dirt or mycelium.
Bone meal can also cultivate both Crimson and Warped fungi into their “huge” counterparts.
Crimson fungus is used to breed Hoglins, while Warped fungus is for breeding Striders.
How to Grow Bamboo
Bamboo is found in jungle biomes and occasionally in shipwrecks. It can be harvested and then planted directly on dirt or sand blocks. Water is not required, but bamboo needs ample light and vertical space to grow tall. When harvesting, break only the upper sections to allow the base to regrow without replanting.
Bamboo is useful for crafting bamboo blocks and scaffolding, breeding pandas, and can also be used as decorative potted plants.
How to Grow Cacti
Cacti generate naturally in deserts. They do not require seeds; simply plant them directly onto sand blocks.
Cacti yield green dye and can also serve as decorative potted plants.
How to Grow Kelp
Kelp is exclusive to ocean biomes underwater. After harvesting, it can be planted in any natural or artificial water source, requiring no light for growth. To re-harvest without replanting, break the kelp stalks at least one block above their base.
Kelp is a valuable food source when dried, and kelp blocks make an efficient fuel.
How to Grow Sea Pickles
Sea Pickles are found in colonies on the seabed of warm oceans and coral reefs. While not traditionally farmed, their numbers can be increased by applying bone meal to existing Sea Pickles planted on living coral blocks underwater.
Sea Pickles serve as a light source, decoration, and are used to craft lime dye.
How to Grow Trees
Beyond typical crops, you can cultivate your own trees. Harvesting trees yields saplings (seeds) which can be planted in dirt. Each tree type provides distinct wood colors for crafting.
Here`s a list of tree types and their primary biomes:
- Acacia: Savanna biomes
- Azalea: Found growing above lush caves (an oak tree variant)
- Birch: Birch forest biomes
- Cherry: Cherry Blossom biomes
- Dark Oak: Dark forest biomes
- Jungle: Jungle biomes
- Mangrove: Swamp biomes
- Oak: Common across various biomes, especially forests
- Spruce: Predominant in taiga biomes