Tutorials/Wheat farming

Farming is an indev feature implemented on February 6th, 2010. Upon completion, it will allow players to create fields, plant seeds and harvest crops.

Farming Technique


You'll need to craft a hoe. Better materials allow for a more durable hoe. You can then use your hoe (right click) to prepare fields. Fields near water will become hydrated, turning from a dry colored patch to a dark moisturized patch. When you're turning grass tiles into fields, seeds may appear : collect them so you can plant them on your prepared fields. Crops will then grow and eventually be ready for harvesting. Note that you can plant a seed on a dehydrated tile and it will grow, although slower. Notch has stated that some patterns are more productive than others.

Wet Field Tiles
For a 'Field Block' (the block of soil on which the hoe has been used to create a field) to turn from dry to wet, a few rules apply:


 * 1) The Field Block requires water at the same level or one level higher. Water at other heights will not count for hydrating a Field Block.
 * 2) The Field Block requires water up to four blocks away, including diagonals.
 * 3) Intervening materials, or lack thereof, between the water and the Field Block make no difference.

As an example, a nine by nine grid of field blocks, with the very central block being water, will all hydrate.

Field tile decay
A field tile will disappear :


 * If you or an animal walk on it too much.
 * If it stays dehydrated for too long.

Harvesting
You can harvest crops at any time by using the left-click action of any tool, and you will get from 0 to 3 seeds, depending on the the state of the crop. You can use the collected wheat to craft bread.

Farming Guide, by Lahrmid
Farming is often considered to be a waste of time - due the amount of work that needs to be put in for the minimal reward you get (food). However, if done right - it can prove to be one of the most useful features of Minecraft - when it comes to avoiding death.

Let's assume you want to get a decent amount of food, that will last quite a while.

You will need:


 * 3-4 hoes (preferably stone or better)
 * An beach/bay where you can grow your crops.
 * Around 64 dirt blocks for making the proper tiles.
 * Optionally: Lots of spare torches!

1. Start by using your hoe on most grass blocks you see (right click on the grass) and eventually you'll see a seed pop up. Pick this seed up - as these are the seeds that you use to plant your crops that will then grow. Continue using your hoe on grass blocks to get a decent amount of seeds (they randomly pop up). Around 10-30 seeds will do fine, all depending on how much food you want. (However, once you've started harvesting your crops, you will automatically get new seeds - so you won't have to go through this process again.

2. Once you have a sufficient amount of seeds, go down to the closest water source you have. (Preferably not a 2x2 small water pond) Place your dirt blocks out from the beach in a row (around 10 blocks should per one row) and place several rows with atleast one row of water inbetween. If you're confused about this;

W-B-W-B-W W-B-W-B-W W-B-W-B-W W-B-W-B-W W-B-W-B-W

W = Water B = Dirt block In this example, you have two rows of dirt blocks (the B's) with 5 dirt blocks in each row. Which means that with this pattern you'll get 10 farming tiles, which takes up 10 seeds. The water is needed to make the crops grow faster - you can grow without the water, but it goes alot slower.

3. After you've placed the dirt blocks in this pattern (I prefer to place my blocks in this pattern, you can obviously use whichever pattern you prefer) use your hoe (if you don't have one, go make another) on the dirt blocks you've placed and right-click on the dirt blocks with your seeds equipped - this will place the seeds on the tiled blocks and they will now start growing!

4. (Optional) Here comes the optional part, since the plants require light to grow, you might want to place torches around the growing crops so that they get light at night aswell. Once one or more crops are fully grown (see above screenshot of how they look fully grown) just attack the crop with any weapon or bare hands - and you should get 1-3 seeds, aswell as some grain. After you've harvested the crop, plant a new seed on it - so that it starts growing a new one.

If this is done correcly, it shouldn't take long until you have several stacks of grain. This basically means you never have to go hungry again!