Pumpkin



A Pumpkin is an uncommon block that appears on grass in a similar manner to mushrooms but does not spread. They are found most commonly in forest biomes, but can also appear in sandy and snow covered areas, albeit rarely. They can appear in swamp biomes in 1.8. They are found alone or in groups of up to 25. As of 1.8, pumpkins are a renewable resource.

As of Beta version 1.8 it is possible to farm pumpkins in the same way as melons; planted pumpkin seeds grow into a central stem that grows until it reaches its maximum size, at which point pumpkins will randomly spawn in vacant spaces next to the stem. However, seeds are only found in Abandoned Mine Shafts, which makes them hard to find.

Pumpkins can currently only be found with a carved face. It was originally stated by Notch that they were to be found and then subsequently carved by crafting. Instead, pumpkins can be crafted into Jack-O-Lanterns (see below). Jeb has stated that pumpkins may eventually spawn uncarved.

Harvested pumpkins can be equipped as a helmet without any actual armor value. It is unique in that it limits the player's view of the world as if it were seen from inside the pumpkin. The pumpkin helmet can be removed and placed into the player's inventory. Although it has no armor value, it can be a serious help during nighttime expeditions: When worn as a helmet, the player may look directly at Endermen with no consequences, making it useful for going outside at night. However, due to the limited visibility that the pumpkin mask has, it can be a serious drawback to your ability to effectively spot and engage other mobs that might have the urge to ambush you.

Pumpkins cannot be placed without a block under them. However, you can place them and remove the block directly beneath and it will remain in place. This reveals that the bottom texture is the same as the top. When placed, pumpkins automatically face the player.

From Beta 1.2, pumpkin helmets appeared as if worn backwards. Despite the incorrect texture, they appeared to be facing the right way from the player's perspective. Similarly, pumpkins appeared flipped in the inventory. This was fixed in Beta 1.5_01.

Farming
Pumpkins will have a central stem that slowly grows until it reaches its maximum size, at which point the pumpkin will randomly spawn a fruit next to it if a Farmland block is adjacent, and if there is air above the stem. Pumpkin stems take around 10 to 30 minutes to fully develop. Pumpkins will revert the farmland to dirt when it grows. Pumpkin stems will only grow a single Pumpkin each, and Pumpkins that grow adjacent to a fully developed stem will cause that stem to connect to it. Bonemeal will cause a pumpkin stem to become fully-grown, but will not produce a pumpkin immediately.

For best results the farm should look like this: S S S S S S S S S           F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S             F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F X X X X W X X X X     OR     X X X X W X X X X S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F  F= Farmland; S= Pumpkin Seeds; W= Water; X= Any Block All Farmland and seed blocks will become hydrated using the above methods. Wheat could be grown in the spaces marked 'X' to avoid wasting potential hydrated farmland blocks. These methods are equally efficient at 44.44%. The highest efficiency a pumpkin farm could reach is 50%, because it takes two blocks to farm one pumpkin. 50% efficiency could be met by eliminating the row with the water, but the pumpkins would grow much more slowly.

Alternatively, a player with plenty of space could use the following farm design:

F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F W F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S

Although this does not utilize space efficiently, it gives each seed 3-4 potential places to spawn a pumpkin, encouraging quicker initial growth at the cost of a clumsier design and less long term yield.

Obtaining Seeds
Pumpkin seeds can be obtained in two ways: 1) finding chests in abandoned mineshafts, and 2) harvesting mature stems (0-3).

Seeds cannot be obtained from the pumpkins themselves, which means the pumpkins found growing naturally are not a source of seeds. Thus, to get started with pumpkin farming, one must explore abandoned mineshafts to find the first seeds. After that, it is possible to generate an unlimited number of seeds by harvesting stems.

Some, but not all, of the chests found in abandoned mineshafts contain pumpkin seeds. Because chests are so rare, and because the probability of a given chest containing pumpkin seeds is low, it may take a great deal of exploration to find the seeds.

Once a pumpkin farm has been started, it becomes much easier to obtain more seeds. When the stems are fully mature, they can be harvested for more seeds. Each stem drops between zero and three seeds. The average number of seeds dropped per stem is greater than one. Thus, if mature stems are always harvested, the total number of stems in one's garden grows geometrically, albeit at a very slow pace early on.

NOTE: Cannot be found in 1.8.1, StructureMineshaftPieces.java (MCP) indicates that pumpkin seeds are never placed into chests and are completely unused except being dropped from stems.