Tutorials/Chorus fruit farming

Chorus farming or chorus fruit farming is the process of growing chorus plants for harvesting chorus fruit and, if possible, flowers for further growing.

Description of the plant
Chorus is a plant that grows naturally on outer islands of the End, accessible via end gateways which generate after killing the Ender Dragon. The plant grows from chorus flowers planted on end stone. When growing, a chorus may grow additional flowers to the side, which can grow independently into separate stalks or branches, making the plant grow wide. A fully grown chorus measures up to twenty blocks into the height, sometimes even higher. A chorus plant block has a chance to drop one chorus fruit. If a block below the plant’s main part is chopped down, blocks above it are also chopped automatically; chorus plants drop fruit as usual, but chorus flowers do not drop, which means they must be harvested directly.

Chorus flowers can be planted in any dimension, provided that it is placed on top of an end stone block. They do not require specific light levels for growth.

Chorus fruits can be eaten (restores points of hunger), but the player has a chance of being teleported into a random direction. They can also be popped in a furnace and then used for crafting purpur blocks – blocks with characteristics similar to stone-type blocks. Four popped chorus fruits craft into four blocks, which makes purpur block production four times more profitable than, for example, producing nether bricks blocks in the same amounts (four nether brick items craft into only one block, and one brick item is obtained by smelting one block of netherrack).

Usage
Chorus plantations are mainly the source of materials to craft purpur blocks in mass numbers for construction. Chorus fruits are first popped in a furnace, then crafted into blocks with a production ratio of 4 fruits for 4 blocks. This setup works best when adding a group of furnaces and an autonomous source of fuel, such as a tree farm which provides wood, which can be smelted into charcoal. This combination is self-sufficient, which means it can be built in any remote place devoid of plentiful sources of construction blocks, such as space between the End’s central and outer islands or space above the Nether’s top bedrock layer.

Harvesting
In order to harvest a chorus plant it is enough to chop down the plant’s bottommost block, which will cause all blocks above it to be harvested, with a chance of dropping chorus fruits. While easy, this does not allow for chorus flowers to be harvested, because they do not drop this way, so they must be harvested separately.

Manual harvesting
Manual harvesting of chorus plants involves manually planting the chorus flower (or multiple flowers), waiting for the plant(s) to grow, and manual harvesting.

Because the chorus plants grow quite tall, it is preferable to create a separate platform at the height from where it would be possible to harvest chorus flowers. When the plants are fully grown, it would be possible to climb onto the platform and harvest the flowers. If some plants are not accessible from the platform, they can be reached by jumping onto other plants, but this method has a risk of falling onto the surface from a considerable height. The varied and unpredictable form of chorus plants can also pose a problem. However, plants can be confined within a “tube” of solid blocks in order to limit their width and to simplify harvesting.

Automated harvesting
Automated harvesting involves automating specific processes of harvesting using pistons or flowing water. Virtually all automated farms use confinement of plants’ growth in order to simplify the process.

Semi-automatic harvesting
Semi-automatic designs usually involve manual harvesting of chorus flowers in amounts enough to sustain the plantation and automated harvesting of the plants. Usually, some plants are limited in height to allow for simple harvesting of chorus flowers. After the harvesting is done, pistons or flowing water are used to chop the plants. The drops can be concentrated in a hopper line.

AFK harvesting
Away from keyboard (AFK) harvesting involves collecting flowers and fruits by chopping them with an array of pistons, similarly to automatic tree farms. But, unlike tree farms, chorus plants’ growth can’t be sped up by bone meal, which significantly slows down the production rate in comparison to tree farming. On top of that, the flowers must be broken manually in order for this kind of farm to be sustainable. It can be automated by fixing the and  buttons in a pressed position (such as by a heavy object). Unlike manual or semi-automatic chorus planting, AFK-able designs are more complicated to build and are quite rare.

Videos

 * Cubfan135’s semi-automatic farm


 * Ray’s Works’ AFK design


 * GTexperience’s AFK design


 * Javamonk’s design