Bone Meal

Bone meal is a material made from the bones of killed skeletons. It is a primary color dye as well as a fertilizer.

Dye
Like all dyes, bone meal can be applied directly to sheep to color them white. This is the only direct use of bone meal as a dye since it cannot be used to change colored wool blocks back into white wool at a crafting table. It can also be combined with other dyes to produce new colors:

Fertilizer
When using Bone Meal as fertilizer, there is a chance of failure for saplings and mushrooms. In that case, the procedure must be repeated until it eventually works. Note that much of the information below will be changing for version 1.5, with various plants requiring 2-5 uses of bonemeal to reach full growth.


 * Seeds, Potatoes, Carrots: When applied to planted wheat, potato or carrot, it will consume one bone meal and instantly make it harvestable.
 * Melon Seeds: When applied to the planted stem, one bone meal is consumed and the stem grows instantly, ready to spawn melons. Keep in mind that melons do not spawn right away.
 * Pumpkin Seeds: When applied to the planted stem, one bone meal is consumed and the stem grows instantly, ready to spawn pumpkins.
 * Saplings: When applied, one bone meal is consumed and the sapling may grow instantly into a tree, provided it has enough space, light, and luck.
 * Grass Blocks: When applied to a grass block, one bone meal is consumed and tall grass, and usually a few flowers, form in a random pattern in a 10x10 area centered on the northwest corner of the grass block (the corner with the lowest X and Z values). This is very useful when you don't have any wheat seeds and can't find any tall grass. You can get the bones from skeleton and get some seeds from tall grass that you have grown from bone meal.
 * Mushrooms: When applied to a mushroom that is planted on dirt, the number of bone meal that is consumed varies on the number of failures. When the mushroom does grow, you may take damage if you occupy the space it needs to grow. While the damage is minimal, use caution when growing Huge Mushrooms with low health or near cliffs.
 * Cocoas: When applied to planted cocoa plants, one bone meal is consumed and the cocoa plant grows instantly, ready to be harvested for Cocoa Beans.
 * This effect does not work on cacti, sugar cane, vines or Nether Wart.

Trivia

 * Bone meal's fertilizing properties make it ideal for growing large quantities of trees or wheat in tight spaces very quickly. A single bone's worth of bone meal can generate enough wheat for one bread or cake. Due to the limitations of 13w04a this is no longer possible.
 * Using bone meal over grass blocks immediately gives you the tall grass, roses and dandelions. It is faster than having to go search for more.
 * When bone meal is used on a grass block, each new plant has a 90% chance of becoming tall grass. Each plant that is not tall grass has a 1 in 3 chance of becoming a rose, or a 2 in 3 chance of becoming a dandelion.
 * Using bone meal to fertilize, harvest and replant seeds is a fast way of creating a large number of seeds at the expense of bone meal instead of harvesting tall grass. This method also produces wheat and can be used to replace traditional farming methods.
 * In Beta SMP version 1.3, there was a bug with Bone Meal so that it would have a 100% chance of succeeding on the first try when used on trees and crops.
 * One bone can be crafted to 3 bone meal, which means on a successful drop, you can get 3 or 6 units of bone meal from a single skeleton.
 * There is a crafting recipe that uses white wool and bone meal. It is useless, however, because it outputs white wool, thus wasting bone meal.
 * Tall grass planted with bone meal in an area already populated with grass blocks can force grass to appear up to 6 blocks away from where you originally used it. The chance of any plant growing on the block decreases with distance from the block which bone meal was used on, the chance becoming very small at 6 blocks distance.
 * Bone meal can be used on the sides of a grass block, as well as on a grass block with plants already on top of it.