Tutorials/Wheat farming


 * ''This page is about wheat farming. For information on the systematic production of other resources, see Renewable Resources. For information on growing melons, see Melon Farming. For information on growing pumpkins, see Pumpkin Farming.

Wheat Farming is a feature in Indev, Infdev, Alpha and Beta implemented on February 6th, 2010. It allows players to create farmland, plant seeds and harvest crops of wheat. Seeds can be found by destroying tall grass or by harvesting fully grown wheat.

Sowing
Wheat can only be planted on Farmland. Although seeds planted on hydrated farmland will grow faster than those on non-hydrated blocks, unhydrated farmland will still grow wheat eventually. Placing torches (Or any other light source, such as glowstone) near Wheat allows it to grow at night, with the additional benefit of preventing aggressive Mobs from spawning near them. However, if there is grass near the torches, passive mobs may spawn, which can destroy wheat by trampling it. To stop this from happening, well placed Fences can stop all mobs (except spiders) from reaching your farm. Alternatively, farming indoors can also isolate the crops from mobs.

Harvesting
Crops can be harvested at any time by left-clicking with any tool, but they will only yield wheat when the crop has changed from green to brown (second picture below). Harvesting crops at this time will yield between zero to three seeds, and one item of wheat, which can be crafted into Bread, Cake, or Cookies.

A faster way to harvest many crops at the same time is to create an auto-harvester. Many tutorials are available on YouTube.



Note: In earlier versions of the game, such as Indev, wheat ceased growing one stage earlier (0x6 in the above image), at which point you were able to harvest wheat.



Growth and Destruction
Wheat crops will only grow under the following conditions:


 * The light level above it is at least 9 (doesn't have to be sunlight)
 * There is at least one block of empty space above it (transparent blocks count as empty)
 * The player (any player in SMP) is within a 7 chunks (about ~120 blocks) of the crop

Wheat does not need water to grow, however wheat can also be destroyed if the farmland block they are placed on reverts to dirt.

If you right-click crops with Bone Meal selected, they will grow into full crops instantly.

Growth Rate
For the fastest growth, hydrated farmland with crops in rows is ideal. This increases the growth rate amount to the maximum of 10, as described below in pseudocode. Every second, crop can grow up 1 level with a probability of approximately growthRate percent. Wheat can grow to max size in just 7 seconds, but only has a chance of 0.00001%. Below is some pseudo-code to demonstrate how this is calculated: getGrowthRate(crop) {   if (crop.getBlockBelow.isHydrated) growthRate = 4.0; else growthRate = 2.0;

growthRate = growthRate + 0.75 * crop.CountHydratedFarmlandsIn8BlocksBelow + 0.25 * crop.CountDehydratedFarmlandsIn8BlocksBelow;

if ( (crop.hasNeighborCropsNorthOrSouth AND crop.hasNeighborCropsEastOrWest)         OR crop.hasNeighborCropsDiagonally  ) // any immediately diagonal square has a crops {       growthRate = growthRate / 2; }   return growthRate; }

Note: As of Beta 1.2, you can use Bone Meal to fertilize crops, making them ready instantly. It doesn't matter if there are crops on neighboring farmland or not.

Example
The crops in the middle are on hydrated farmland surrounded by 8 hydrated farmland blocks. Growth rate is 4+8*0.75 = 10. This is the best-case scenario.

Crops on a hydrated farmland block surrounded by 7 hydrated farmland blocks have a growth rate of 9.25, which is as good as 10 (because 100/10 and 100/9.25 both have same quotient = 10).

If the crops in the middle are on hydrated farmland and are surrounded by only 2 hydrated farmland blocks: Growth rate is 4+2*0.75 = 5.5.

If the crops in the middle are on hydrated farmland and are surrounded by 8 hydrated farmland but have both NS and EW or diagonal neighbor crops: Growth rate is (4+8*0.75)/2 = 5.

This picture shows a wheat farm with optimal growth rate 9.25-10 (except at left and right edges of farm).



When seeds are plentiful and space is limited, planting in one big square will be nearly as productive as planting in rows.(the middle ground is worse than either option) The crops will take twice as long to mature, but you will have twice the number of crops growing, so you will harvest about the same amount of wheat. If the water sources used to hydrate your farm are in the middle of your farm, planting in rows will be slightly more efficient, as the water will take up space needed to double your planting space, but the difference is very slight. Basically, planting in rows is slightly more efficient by area, and requires much less starting seeds, but planting everywhere requires less harvest time and is only slightly less efficient. Which pattern is best depends on your situation and harvesting habits.

Automatic farming using pistons
Planted wheat can be "pushed" out of its place and turned into item form using a piston. This can be used to harvest crops almost automatically, as all you have to do is pick up the wheat. Here is an example of using pistons to farm:



When the pistons are activated, the planted wheat is pushed into the water, which then carries the items to an easily collectible area. However, the farmland will instantly revert to the standard dirt block; therefore, you will have to till the ground after every harvest.

Alternatively, with sticky pistons one can create an automatic farming method that does not destroy cropland and simply needs to be replanted. The wheat is turned into an item, falls into the water stream and floats downstream, ready for collection.



It is possible to add on to this and increase the number of harvested wheat.

Alternatively, a piston can be used to control the flow of water over the plants to be harvested. The water will harvest all plants and will not convert all the farmland back to dirt as of 1.0. This method needs much fewer pistons.

Tips

 * Crops can be harvested quickly and easily from large farms in a very short period of time by redirecting water over the crops. As of Beta 1.5, fully grown crops will drop up to 3 seeds, but immature crops will not drop seeds. For a tutorial on a farm that harnesses this method, click here.

Trivia

 * If running water flows into wheat, the crop will drop seeds (and wheat if mature), but only if the water flows into the wheat rather than dropping onto it from above. This can be used to make harvesting much faster and easier.


 * Prior to Beta 1.6 and the introduction of tall grass, seeds were obtained by using a hoe on grass.


 * Prior to the release of 1.0.0, if you placed fences under the hydrated dirt block, when you stepped on it they will not revert back to normal dirt. This did not work with nether fences.