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Wood is a naturally occurring block fundamental to the crafting of many blocks and tools in the game. They have a skin resembling bark on the four side faces, and a crosscut face on top and bottom. Wood is greatly abundant in naturally-generated maps, as it is used as the foundation for trees. Wood is also flammable.

There are currently four varieties of wood. One is the normal wood (Oak); another is Birch, which is white and has dark spots over it; a third type, Spruce, resembles Oak but is dark in color; the fourth type, Jungle, resembles Oak wood with bark aligned horizontally and has a green tint.

Wood from different types of trees will produce different colors of wood planks when crafted and will not stack in the inventory. Birch trees have slightly duller colored leaves than regular trees, pine trees have pine needles, and jungle leaves are leafy with fruit-like shapes.

Obtaining

Wood can be chopped by hand, but using an axe consumes less time.

Naturally generated

Wood blocks of all four types generate naturally as part of trees, even above layer 128. The types of trees generated depend on the biome:

  • Oak trees generate in forests, swamps, jungles, ice plains, and extreme hills.
  • Spruce trees generate only in taigas.
  • Birch trees generate only in forests. Birch is the rarest of the four wood types.
  • Jungle trees generate only in jungles. Jungle trees can occur in 2×2 dimensions instead of the normal 1×1.

Besides forming trees, oak wood blocks can also be found in plains villages where they form the edges of farms and are also used in the corners and roofs of a few small huts.

From saplings

If there is enough space and light, a sapling will grow into a tree after a certain time. This, combined with the fact that saplings have a chance to drop from destroyed leaves, makes wood a renewable resource. Saplings will even grow in the Nether or the End.

Usage

Wood blocks are often crafted into planks for building or further crafting. In addition, wood can be smelted in a furnace to make charcoal as a substitute for coal.

As a crafting ingredient

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Oak Wood or
Spruce Wood or
Birch Wood or
Jungle Wood

Further crafting

The following table presents the amount of wood needed to produce an even multiple of a given item with no waste left over, and the quantity produced:

Product Number of wood
blocks needed
Product
amount
Ratio
Boat 5 4 80%
Bowl 3 16 533.33%
Charcoal 0 crafted, 1 cooked[note 1] 1 100%
Chest 2 1 50%
Crafting Table 1 1 100%
Door 3 2 66.67%
Fence 3 8 266.67%
Fence Gate 1 1 100%
Ladder 7 24 342.86%
Wood Planks 1 4 400%
Sign 13 24 184.62%
Stick 1 8 800%
Torch 1 crafted, 8 cooked[note 1] 32 355.56%
Trapdoor 3 4 133.33%
Wooden Axe 2[note 2] 2 100%
Wooden Hoe 3 4 133.33%
Wooden Pickaxe 2[note 2] 2 100%
Wooden Pressure Plate 1 2 200%
Wooden Shovel 1 2 200%
Wooden Slab 3 24 800%
Wooden Stairs 3 8 266.67%
Wooden Sword 5 8 160%
  1. a b Requires the burning of wood into charcoal in a furnace. Thus, you will need 8 cobblestone and burning material. The cobblestone and fuel are ignored for the purpose of this conversion.
  2. a b Because one plank cannot be crafted into two sticks, this crafting recipe requires two wood for two units.

As a smelting ingredient

Ingredients Smelting
Wood Template:Grid/Furnace

As a fuel

Wood can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per block.

It is advisable to use wood planks as fuel instead of wood, as they share the same burn time. However, it is advisable, if you do have wood, to smelt the wood and use charcoal as fuel.

Data values

The data value for wood blocks consists of two facing bits (high-order) and two wood type bits (low-order).

Bits Values
0x1
0x2
A two-bit field storing a value of 0 to 3 specifying the type of wood:
  • 0: Oak Wood
  • 1: Spruce Wood
  • 2: Birch Wood
  • 3: Jungle Wood
0x4
0x8
A two-bit field storing a value of 0 to 3 specifying the orientation of the wood:
  • 0: Facing Up/Down
  • 1: Facing East/West
  • 2: Facing North/South
  • 3: Only bark

Note that when a wood block is placed, it changes its facing bits, placing in the direction relative to the block it is placed on.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements
Icon Achievement In-game description Prerequisites Actual requirements (if different) Version restriction Xbox points earned
Advancement-plain-rawlink= class=pixel-image Getting Wood Attack a tree until a block of wood pops out Taking Inventory Pick up Wood from the ground. None 10G

History

c
0.0.14aCalled log when first introduced, oak wood was one of the first blocks in Minecraft.
0.0.15aVery small texture change.
0.0.24Breaking log now drops 3-5 wood blocks.
i
February 23, 2010Breaking log gives the block instead of planks.
a
1.2.0Wood would now only be destroyed by fire if it had several sides simultaneously burning. If only one side was burning, the fire and wood block would last forever. This was a bug but made for nice fireplaces. Netherrack can also be used this way, as it burns forever.
b
1.2Added birch and spruce wood
1.4Wood and wood planks will now burn and be destroyed if any one of the sides are lit on fire. This can happen in 1.6.6 again but may not happen to all wood.
1.5With the addition of birch and spruce saplings, their respective wood types become renewable resources.
r
1.2.112w03aAdded jungle wood.
1.2.4Different types of wood now produce different colors of planks when crafted.
1.3.112w30dAll types of blocks of wood are now rotatable, with the wood placed with the inner side facing the player (similarly to pistons).
1.4.212w38aWood blocks now have new sounds when being placed, walked on, and mined.
Orientation of placed wood blocks is now determined by which face of another block they are placed against, similarly to levers.
1.6.113w24aAs a feature of resource packs, each log has its own top, meaning that log tops can now be colored separately.

Issues

Issues relating to "Log" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • In real life, the number of rings on the inside of a tree counts the age of the tree. If one counts the rings of a wood block, the sum is four years.
  • Some oak trees and birch trees have the same structure: 5 or 6 wood blocks and a pattern of leaves that stays the same for both regular oak and regular birch trees.
  • It is possible for Birch trees to have 7 wood instead of 6.
  • Although wood is usually considered renewable, there is the chance for a tree grown from a sapling to drop 0 saplings, so if you begin with a set number of trees, it is potentially possible that all of them and their planted saplings will drop 0 saplings, depleting the resource; in practice, this is almost impossible because the probability of a tree dropping 0 saplings is astronomically low but still possible.
  • When a world that has a jungle biome in it is opened in 1.1 instead of 1.2.1 or further, the wood and leaf types will be changed into oak wood and leaves.
  • Birch and Spruce trees in Pocket Edition don't have a different color. If one was to craft wooden planks out of Birch or Spruce wood, they would be the same color as Oak wooden planks.

Gallery

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