Farmland

"Want to live the Good Life? With a little bit of graft, you can delight in nature’s bounty - and in a happily sustainable way! The secret is dirt - and what you can do with it. Your average dirt block can be transformed into a ready and reusable dispenser for all manner of yummy foods: wheat, melons, pumpkins, carrots and potatoes."

- Marsh Davies

Farmland is a block on which seeds can be planted and grown.

Obtaining
To make a block of farmland, a hoe on dirt, grass block or grass path.

Farmland can be only be obtained in the inventory using commands or the control. When mined (even with a Silk Touch tool), it drops dirt.

Natural generation
Farmland occurs naturally in villages where wheat, potatoes, carrots and beetroots are grown. Patches of farmland are surrounded by logs or sandstone. They also naturally occur in woodland mansions.

Usage
Farmland is required to grow six of the game's types of crops (5 in Console Edition).

Plants such as saplings, ferns, tall grass and flowers may be planted on farmland. Mushrooms, sugar canes and cactus cannot be planted on farmland.

Hydration
A farmland block will be created dry. It will become hydrated if the following conditions are met:
 * 1) Water up to four blocks away horizontally, including diagonals.
 * 2) The water must be on the same level or 1 block above farmland block level.

The blocks between the farmland block and the water make no difference.

There is nothing the player can do to affect the rate at which farmland becomes hydrated. Each farmland block within a 9x9 grid of farmland with a single water block in the middle has exactly the same chance of becoming hydrated as a single farmland block in an ocean.

Farmland can also be hydrated by rain.

Different types of seeds grow faster on hydrated farmland than on dry farmland. Hydrated farmland will yield a fully developed wheat crop in a little over a single day/night cycle.

Decay
Under certain conditions, a farmland block will "decay" becoming a dirt block, regardless of its state of hydration. This will happen if any of the following occur:


 * If the farmland block is dehydrated and nothing is planted on it for too long.
 * If the player or any mob jumps/falls on the block (with a greater chance as falling speed increases).
 * In the Computer Edition, mobs smaller than 0.512 cubic block cannot destroy farmland. This includes rabbits, chickens, bats, ocelots, wolves, cave spiders, endermites, silverfish, baby mobs, small slimes, and small magma cubes.
 * If a piston arm is extended over a farmland block.
 * If a piston pushes a farmland block down.
 * If a solid block covers the top surface of the farmland block such as when pumpkin or melon blocks appear.
 * If an enderman teleports directly on top of a farmland block.
 * If snow falls directly on top of a farmland block.

When farmland decays, crops at the top are dropped as items, as if they were harvested.

Trivia

 * Ladders and torches cannot be attached to the side of a farmland block, but signs can.
 * Farmland will not be trampled when walking off of a slab next to it.
 * Farmland will not decay if the player 'jumps' onto it, with a block two blocks above the farmland being jumped on.
 * The flowing water that comes off of a source block hydrates farmland just as source blocks do.