Melon

Melons were first introduced in Minecraft Beta 1.8, the Adventure Update. Melon blocks grow from planted melon seeds, which grow over time until they reach maturity, randomly spawning melon blocks on adjacent farmland. Destroying a melon yeilds 3-7 melon slices. A melon slice can be consumed for, or be crafted into a melon seed to be planted as a new stem.

Crafting
Melon blocks can be crafted out of 9 melon slices.

Farming
To start a Melon farm, one must first find Melon Seeds, which only spawn in Abandoned Mineshafts. Planting a Melon Seed places a small stem that will grow over time. Like regular seeds, Melon stems also require at least one block of water within 4 blocks of it in order to grow. Once the stem reaches maturity (which can be instantly forced by the use of Bone Meal), the stem will spawn Melon Blocks in adjacent Farmland blocks every 10-30 minutes (0.5-1.5 minecraft days) and visually connect to it. The stem does in fact require an Air block or a transparent block above it to be able to produce melons, the resulting melon does not. Once a Melon grows, the stem will not grow any more Melons until the Melon is destroyed. Melons will revert the farmland below them to dirt when they grow, so the soil will have to be re-tilled after harvesting Melons. Once the connecting Melon is harvested, the stem will be able to generate a new Melon block.

For maximum melon per block yield, the following methods can be used:

o o o o o o o o o           o o o o o o o o o               # o # o # o # o #               # o o # # # o o # o o o o o o o o o           o o o o o o o o o               o o o o o o o o o               # o o # # # o o # o o o o W o o o o    OR     x x x x W x x x x     OR        # o # o W o # o #     OR        # o o # W # o o # o o o o o o o o o           # # # # # # # # #               o o o o o o o o o               o # # o o o # # o                              o o o o o o o o o               # o # o # o # o #               # o o # # # o o # 9x8 @ 48.61%                  9x9 @ 44.44%                   9x9 @ 27.16%                    9x9 @ 49.3%
 * 1) # # # # # # # #            # # # # # # # # #               o o o o o o o o o               o # # o o o # # o
 * 2) # # # # # # # #            # # # # # # # # #               o # o # o # o # o               o # # o o o # # o
 * 1) # # # x # # # #            o o o o o o o o o               o o o o o o o o o               # o o # # # o o #
 * 2) # # # # # # # #            # # # # # # # # #               o # o # o # o # o               o # # o o o # # o

# = Melon Seeds; o = Farmland; W = Water; x = Any Block

With all these, both farm blocks and seed blocks will be hydrated.

The left method has an efficiency of 48.61%, the middle is efficient at 44.44%. The efficiency of the far right design varies (see below about designs that use the 'X' spaces).

Depending on circumstance (i.e. if you plan on making only 1 farm with no adjacent other melon farms) the latter 2 setups will be more efficient.

Wheat could be grown in the spaces marked 'X' to avoid wasting potential hydrated farmland blocks.

Designs that, instead, use these 'X' spaces for more melons introduce ambiguity. There would be seeds with two spaces to grow into. Such a design would sometimes be more efficient than the others, and sometimes only equally as efficient.

The third design is the most time-efficient one (one seed can grow 4 melons) and requires the least activity (less need to hoe the dirt often).

The above layouts are optimized for infrequent harvests, with plenty of time for the field to regrow in between. For frequent harvests, the following layout may be better suited; if harvested once per day-and-night cycle, it yields about 17 melons per harvest (as opposed to about 13 melons for the above designs):

o o o o o o o o o o o o o W o o o o o o o o o o o o o
 * 1) # # # x # # # #
 * 1) # # # x # # # #
 * 1) # # # x # # # #

Melons are destroyed and drop Melon Slices when a Piston of any kind pushes it, leading the possibility for auto-harvesting Melon farms. A simple Auto-Harvester would be by placing an up-facing sticky piston under each farmland block reserved for melons. When the sticky pistons are powered, they destroy all of the melons for pickup by the player.

Bugs

 * In Beta 1.9 pre4, Melons only yield 1 Melon Slice

Trivia

 * The Beta 1.8 Changelog states "Added Melons" twice.
 * Any stem adjacent to a melon block will appear to connect to it.
 * Melons were first revealed in an IGN interview with Notch.
 * On the Getsatisfaction.com complete ideas for the Ideas section, it was stated that Watermelons were to be implemented.