Bone Meal

Bone meal is a material made from the bones of killed skeletons. It is a primary color dye as well as a fertilizer.

Dye
Like all dyes, bone meal can be applied directly to sheep to color them white. This is the only direct use of bone meal as a dye since it cannot be used to change colored wool blocks back into white wool at a crafting table. It can also be combined with other dyes to produce new colors:

Fertilizer
When using Bone Meal as fertilizer, there is a chance of failure for saplings and mushrooms. In that case, the procedure must be repeated until it eventually works. Bone Meal does not work on cacti, sugar cane, vines or Nether Wart. Before version 1.5, one or two Bone Meal were sufficient to achieve full growth. After the update, as many as five may be needed, and Bone Meal can now grow a plant to intermediate stages.


 * Seeds, Potatoes, Carrots: When applied to the plant, it will accelerate its growth, either moving it to the next stage or final stage depending on its current growth and amount of Bone Meal used.
 * Melon and Pumpkin Seeds: When applied to the planted stem, the stem will grow to a later stage of development, and enough Bone Meal can grow a stem to full size. Bone Meal only affects the stem itself; Melons and Pumpkins sprout from adult stems at a fixed rate which cannot be modified.
 * Saplings: When applied, the Bone Meal is consumed and the sapling may grow instantly into a tree, provided it has enough space, light, and luck. Multiple uses of Bone Meal are necessary to achieve this.
 * Grass Blocks: When applied to a grass block, the Bone Meal is consumed and tall grass, and usually a few flowers, form in a random pattern in a 10x10 area centered on the northwest corner of the grass block (the corner with the lowest X and Z values). This can be an effective method of gathering wheat seeds.
 * Mushrooms: When applied to a mushroom that is planted on dirt, it will eventually grow to full size after enough uses. The sudden growth may cause you to take damage if you occupy the space it needs to grow. While the damage itself is minimal, this can pose a danger if Huge Mushrooms are grown near cliffs or with low health.
 * Cocoas: When applied to planted cocoa plants, the bone meal is consumed and the cocoa plant grows instantly, ready to be harvested for Cocoa Beans.

Trivia

 * Bone meal's fertilizing properties make it ideal for growing large quantities of trees or wheat in tight spaces very quickly. A single bone's worth of bone meal can generate enough wheat for one bread or cake. After the 1.5 update increasing the amount of Bone Meal necessary for such growth to 2-5 uses, this method is now extremely inefficient for wheat growth on a large scale, but trees can still be grown in this manner for relatively little investment.
 * Using bone meal over grass blocks immediately gives you the tall grass, roses and dandelions. It is faster than having to go search for more.
 * When bone meal is used on a grass block, each new plant has a 90% chance of becoming tall grass. Each plant that is not tall grass has a 1 in 3 chance of becoming a rose, or a 2 in 3 chance of becoming a dandelion.
 * Using bone meal to fertilize, harvest and replant seeds is a fast way of creating a large number of seeds at the expense of bone meal instead of harvesting tall grass. This method also produces wheat and can be used to replace traditional farming methods.
 * In Beta SMP version 1.3, there was a bug with Bone Meal so that it would have a 100% chance of succeeding on the first try when used on trees and crops.
 * One bone can be crafted to 3 bone meal, which means on a successful drop, you can get 3 or 6 units of bone meal from a single skeleton.
 * There is a crafting recipe that uses white wool and bone meal. It is useless, however, because it outputs white wool, thus wasting bone meal.
 * Tall grass planted with bone meal in an area already populated with grass blocks can force grass to appear up to 6 blocks away from where you originally used it. The chance of any plant growing on the block decreases with distance from the block which bone meal was used on, the chance becoming very small at 6 blocks distance.
 * Bone meal can be used on the sides of a grass block, as well as on a grass block with plants already on top of it.