Sugar Cane

Sugar cane (sometimes called reeds, papyrus, or bamboo) can be found on grass, dirt, and sand as long as it is adjacent to water on at least one side. Sugar cane may grow to a maximum height of three blocks, but is occasionally found in new world generation up to six blocks tall. The player can place sugarcane on a block or on existing sugarcane blocks to make sugar cane of any height. Sugar cane is rarely found in tundras, due to the low occurrence rate of open, unfrozen water (since most open sources of water freeze over into ice, causing preexisting sugar canes to de-spawn and to drop as resources).

Usage
Sugar cane is the only source of sugar and paper. Sugar is a key component of cake(s) and is used in brewing; paper is required to craft books (and so bookshelves), maps and enchantment tables.

Properties


Sugar cane has many of the same properties as cacti: planting it does not require the land to be tilled beforehand, removing a lower portion of the plant causes all the sections above it to drop resources, and using bone meal on the plant does not cause it to grow instantly.

Sugar cane will block the flow of lava and water; when either liquid hits a block of sugar cane from above, it spreads out as if it were hitting a solid block. It will also support other blocks placed on top of it, but it will not support a player. Sugar cane can also be placed in the middle of an existing flow (on a block adjacent to water) and will keep water out of the space it occupies while allowing the player to walk or swim through it. When used underwater, sugar cane displaces the water, just as slabs do, leaving an air pocket. Because of this property, sugar cane can be used to create airlocks. As with on land, sugar cane can be stacked infinitely underwater, thus creating an air pocket that extends from the bottom of a body of water to the surface. When shot at by a bow, the arrow will pass through the Sugar Cane.

Farming


Sugar cane must be planted on a grass, dirt or sand block that is directly adjacent to water (it cannot be placed on blocks above or diagonal to water). The adjacent water block can be covered with another block, whether opaque or transparent, and sugar cane will still be able to be placed and grow next to it. It can also be planted next to flowing water.

Sugar cane grows rather slowly. An individual sugar cane block goes through 16 phases of growth before another sugar cane block can grow on top of it. When it goes to the next phase, it will trigger a Block update detector. Each phase takes a random amount of time, but the average time per phase is about 20 seconds. Therefore it will take, on average, 320 seconds, or 5 minutes 20 seconds, for one piece of sugarcane to grow. Only the top block in a sugar cane plant grows in this way, and only if there is empty space above it. After growing a new block above, this growth process restarts from the beginning. Breaking and replanting a sugar cane block also restarts the growth process.

Sugar cane, like saplings, wheat, and cacti, will only grow if the chunk they are on is loaded into memory, so a player should not venture too far from the field. Mature sugar cane can be harvested by hitting the middle instead of the bottom block to save the player the effort of replanting.



With the setup on the right, it is possible to farm the maximum amount of sugar cane per 4×4 area. Each unit of the farm has four water blocks and twelve sand blocks, allowing 75% of the area to be dedicated to the sugar cane. Any number of units can be used without sacrificing any efficiency, although the maximum efficiency possible over a large area is 80%. Additionally, slabs or lily pads can be placed over each water source to allow unimpeded travel across the farm.

With the use of pistons, it becomes possible to automate a harvest of sugar canes: a piston (or a block attached to a sticky piston) is placed to extend into the middle of a cane, which will cause the upper segments of the cane to become items when the piston is triggered. This makes it possible to collect them using standard waterway collection methods (though, canes may still fall on the original dirt block), or by simply running over the canes.



If the water source is removed, sugar cane will not break until it tries to grow, disintegrating into two sugar cane resources. Compared to traditional farming, this is an inefficient method because the water supply has to be replaced and the sugar cane replanted repeatedly. Alternatively, redstone wire can be used to collect sugar cane resources (see this farming tutorial).



Sugar cane farms set up in taiga biomes in Beta 1.8 or before would have grown successfully. After updating to a later version, the taiga biome gets snow. This causes the water in the farm to solidify into ice. Thereafter, the sugar cane stops growing and pops out of the ground; the farm fails (although naturally occurring sugar cane will not, even when next to ice). To address this, place blocks with torches attached to them immediately above the water blocks in your farm, and then shatter the ice. The ice will not reform and the farm will grow again. You can leave a gap of three blocks between the torch block and the water block to allow you to walk underneath. You can also place glowstone below the ice/water, if there is nowhere to place a torch.

History
Reeds (the previous name used for sugar cane(s)) were added in the Seecret Friday Update 6 (Alpha v1.0.11 patch and informally referred to as bamboo or papyrus by many players. Since reeds could be washed away with water currents or instantly destroyed by removing the water adjacent to them, automated reed farms could be made in previous versions of Minecraft.

Notch retconned reeds into sugar cane in Beta 1.2 because the recipe for the cake(s) introduced in that update needed a source of sugar. As of Beta 1.6, projectile interaction with sugar cane was changed: arrows no longer stick to sugar cane(s), and instead, they pass through. However, snowballs will still come into contact with any sugar cane blocks as if they are solid.

As of Beta 1.8, sugar cane can grow and be placed onto sand as long as it is adjacent to water, though before Beta 1.8, sugar cane could still spawn on sand adjacent to water, but could not be placed onto sand. This update allows sugar cane to appear next to water ponds in desert biomes.

Trivia

 * In the coding, sugar cane is still referenced as "reeds", both the inventory edited block and the item.
 * The sugar cane block when inventory edited is called "Sugar cane", but without a capital 'C' in "cane", unlike the item.
 * In Beta 1.8 Creative, giving yourself sugar cane yields the block, not the item itself. However, you can still place it.
 * Neither the sugar cane nor the block it stands on can be lit on fire with flint and steel, although attempting this will still lower the durability of the tool.
 * Sugar cane can grow underground, but this occurrence is extremely uncommon.
 * Ghasts cannot see through sugar cane, while they can be shot through it, making it a safe block to use when making walls. A ghast's fireball will not pass through sugar cane, but it will collide with the sugar cane as if it is a normal block. Note that sugar cane cannot be planted in the Nether without an inventory editor, or the silk touch enchantment (1.9pre3+ only) bringing ice into the Nether because there is no water, and any water transported in a bucket will de-spawn instantly.
 * Sugar cane can never catch on fire.
 * One can use sugar cane to create underwater paths, allowing them to move at normal speed and breathe, if it is two blocks in height. Water must be adjacent to the block the sugar cane is placed on to allow block placement.
 * Naturally occurring sugar cane can occasionally be found underground, and in low light, so long as there is water to promote its growth.