Sugar Cane is a type of plant that is commonly found in Minecraft. Sugar cane can be found/placed on grass or dirt and, as of 1.8, sand, as long as the block is adjacent to water on at least one side. Each sugar cane plant can grow up to a height of four blocks. A player can add additional canes manually by stacking them on top of another sugar cane block. Sugar cane is found in most biomes, but is rarely found in the tundra biome due to ice replacing nearly all water next to land.
Behavior
Like cacti, sugar cane does not require the land to be tilled beforehand, and removing a lower portion of the plant causes all the sections above it to be destroyed, dropping their items.
Sugar cane will support other blocks placed on top of it, but it will not hold up a player or block the flow of lava and water. When either liquid hits a block of sugar cane from above, it spreads out as if hitting a solid block.
Crafting
Sugar cane is a very important necessity, as it is used to make many foods with the use of sugar and also to create paper. Paper created with sugar cane can be used to make various items such as maps and books, which can be used in crafting other important items, like the Enchantment Table.
| Sugar | Paper | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | None | None | None | None | None | |
| None | Sugar Cane | None | None | None | None | |
| None | None | None | Sugar Cane | Sugar Cane | Sugar Cane | |
Farming
Like many plant blocks, sugar cane can be harvested, but all sugar cane blocks must be adjacent (next to) to water, and level with it. The cycle of planting them, from a sugar cane item being right-clicked on the ground, can be done indefinitely, and the stalks will gradually grow taller. When farming sugar cane, a player must be patient, as bone meal does not affect sugar cane (Bedrock Edition is an exception). Resourceful sugar cane farming typically shows the use of several stalks of sugar cane plants ranging from around 10–30 separate stalks at a time.
The most efficient way to farm a crop of sugar cane, which requires the least amount of work, is to only trim the top two segments of a fully-grown, 3 (rarely 4) block high plant and use the stalk segments one looted to plant new sugar cane around the water source. Wait until the entire crop has grown to the full height of 3 blocks high, and then trim off the top 2 segments of each plant (leaving the bottom ones still planted in the ground). Continue to re-visit the crop each time all plants have fully grown, trimming only the top two segments and planting more stalks adjacent to water, until one runs out of space next to the water, or have all of the sugar cane planted that one wished for.
Trivia
- Sugar cane can be planted on a tile covered in snow even if there is no water adjacent to it, but it will break when it grows.
- Neither the sugar cane nor the block they stand on can be lit on fire with flint and steel, although attempting this still lowers the durability of the tool.
- Sugar cane is the easiest crop to grow in Minecraft XBLA due to the fact that it can be broken easily and can be regrown without worrying about seeds being missing or lost. It will grow faster than wheat, as while wheat grows in stages, sugar cane will just grow another sugar cane block.
- Sugar cane grows at the same speed on either dirt and sand.
- Sugar cane that has a tall enough stalk can block a Skeleton's line of sight, preventing it from shooting at a player.
- Surprisingly, sugar cane can stop lava flowing past it, but it will most likely be destroyed if the lava destroys the water that the sugar cane is next to.
- Before Minecraft beta 1.2, sugar cane was called reeds.
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