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Bone meal is a material made from the bones of killed skeletons. It can be used as dye as well as a fertilizer for most plants.

Crafting

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Bone

3

Usage

Dye

In Bedrock Edition and Minecraft Education, bone meal can be:

Crafting ingredient

Name Ingredients Crafting recipe
White Banner pattern Bone Meal +
Banner


White Banner image Bone Meal +
Banner +
Vines or
Bricks or
Creeper Head or
Wither Skeleton Skull or
Oxeye Daisy or
Enchanted Golden Apple
Enchanted Golden Apple

Bone Block Bone Meal

Gray Dye Ink Sac or
Black Dye +
Bone Meal
Light Blue Dye Lapis Lazuli or
Blue Dye +
Bone Meal
Lime Dye Green Dye +
Bone Meal
Magenta Dye Lapis Lazuli or
Blue Dye +
Red Dye +
Bone Meal
Pink Dye Red Dye +
Bone Meal
White Balloon Latex +
Bone Meal +
Helium +
Lead

White Bed Any Bed +
Bone Meal


White Concrete Powder Bone Meal +
Sand +
Gravel
White Dye Bone Meal

White Firework Star Gunpowder +
Bone Meal +
Head or
Gold Nugget or
Feather or
Fire Charge +
Glowstone Dust +
Diamond


White Firework Star White Firework Star +
Bone Meal


White Glow Stick Polyethylene +
Hydrogen Peroxide +
Bone Meal +
Luminol

White Shulker Box Any Shulker Box +
Bone Meal


White Stained Glass Glass +
Bone Meal
White Stained Glass Pane Glass Pane +
Bone Meal
White Terracotta Terracotta +
Bone Meal
White Wool Any Wool +
Bone Meal


Fertilizer

  • Seeds, Potatoes, Carrots: When applied to the plant, it will accelerate its growth, either moving it to the next stage of growth 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 10×10 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. Does not work on dirt. The flowers that appear are dependent on the biome, meaning that in order to obtain specific flowers, the player must travel to biomes where the flowers are found naturally. See flowers for more information.
  • Mushrooms: When applied to a mushroom that is planted on dirt, it will eventually grow into a huge mushroom after enough uses. The sudden growth may cause nearby players to take suffocation damage if they occupy the space it needs to grow.
  • Cocoa: When applied to planted cocoa plants, the bone meal is consumed and the cocoa plant grows instantly, ready to be harvested for cocoa beans.

Bone meal does not work on cacti, sugar cane, vines or Nether Wart.

Data values

Template:Dyes

Video

Bone Meal/video

History

b
1.2Bone meal added.
1.6.6Bone meal can now be applied on grass blocks.
1.81.8-pre1Bone meal can be used on mushrooms to make Huge Mushrooms, and the block the mushroom is on changes to dirt.
1.8-pre2Bone meal can now be applied on pumpkin and melon seeds.
Bug in "1.8-pre1" fixed; huge mushrooms only grow on dirt and grass.
r
1.3.112w19aBone meal can now be applied on cocoa beans.
12w25aFixed being able to use bone meal in dark rooms.
?A fully grown crop can no longer accept bone meal.[citation needed]
1.4.212w34aBone meal can be used to dye leather armor and tamed Wolf's collar.
1.513w04aBone meal is significantly nerfed.

Wheat, melon and pumpkin seeds, potatoes and carrots: one bone meal is consumed for all seven stages of growth. (Melon and pumpkin seeds do not spawn right away)
Saplings: one bone meal is consumed for each of the two growth stages then it will grow into a tree
Cocoa pods: one bone meal is consumed for each of the three stages of growth.

Green particles are now displayed when bone meal is used.
Bone meal can be used from dispensers.
13w05aAdjusted balancing of bonemeal. Growing a plant to its last state now takes on average 2-5 uses of bonemeal (results vary from plant to plant).[2]
pocketa
0.3.3Added bone meal.
0.8.0build 2Nerfed like in the PC edition.
build 5Pumpkin and melon stems only grow by one when bone meal is used
Flowers now spawn other flowers when Bone Meal is used.
Can grow Ferns and Tall Grass in survival and creative.
Now grows Sugar Cane to maximum height (exclusive to MCPE).
Legacy Console Edition
TU1Added bonemeal.
Pi Edition
0.1.1Added bonemeal.

Trivia

  • Bone meal's fertilizing properties make it ideal for growing large quantities of trees or wheat in tight spaces very quickly.
  • Using bone meal over grass blocks immediately grows tall grass along with the flowers for that biome.
  • Prior to version 1.7.2, 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 (now known as a poppy), 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.
  • 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 or bottom of a grass block, as well as on a grass block with plants already on top of it.
  • Regardless of if it succeeds in fertilizing, bone meal makes green sparkles. However, like smoke from a torch, the sparkles only appear if the player has particles set All or Decreased.

See also

References


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