Farmland

Farmland is a block on which seeds can be planted and grown. To make farmland, you can use a hoe on dirt or grass. If you destroy a farmland block, which can be destroyed without a tool, it will drop dirt. After using a hoe on a block of dirt, the top of the dirt's appearance changes, becoming ridged and bumpy like tilled soil. When you till a dirt block, the top layer is removed. But due to the way farmland blocks are textured, it appears as if the block sinks into the ground because the texture for the sides is shifted down instead of the top pixels being removed. A block of tilled dirt becomes darker to replicate the appearance of wet soil when it is introduced to a block of water. If left alone for a period of time, a block of dry tilled dirt will "decay" into regular dirt or dry up to dry tilled dirt if wet. Grass does not spread onto tilled dirt.

Farming
Farmland is used for farming wheat, melons, or pumpkins. To begin farming you need to craft a hoe. Like all tools, hoes have variable 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 can be planted in any farmland block where they will eventually grow. Seeds planted on hydrated farmland will grow faster than those on non-hydrated blocks. Block plants such as melons grow by spreading their stem to adjacent farmland tiles, on which new melons grow. 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 soil crops by walking on it (block crops are not affected as they are physical blocks).

Not every seed grows the same, look at the See Also section for information about specific crops.

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:


 * 1) Water up to four blocks away, including diagonals.
 * 2) The water must be on the same horizontal level (water beneath a farmland block will not hydrate it).

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 happen 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.

Trivia

 * You cannot place torches onto a farmland block either from the top or sides.
 * Dirt can be hoed into farmland from any side of the block including from underneath it.
 * Rain will hydrate farmland, though not quickly and apparently in random pattern.
 * You cannot light farmland blocks on fire.
 * When you till a dirt block, the top layer is removed. But due to the way tilled dirt blocks are textured, it appears as if the block sinks into the ground. The texture for the sides is shifted down instead of the top pixels being removed.
 * Tilling a dirt block which has a dirt block on top of it will change it to farmland even though it cannot be used. If a hoe is used on a block horizontally adjacent to such a block, the first block will revert to dirt and the selected block will not be tilled. The hoe will still take one point of damage from each use.
 * Prior to Beta 1.2, there was a bug which would allow you to destroy any block (even bedrock) by placing a dirt block under a block, tilling the dirt, and planting seeds on the dirt. This would cause the block above the tilled dirt to disappear without giving a resource.