Tutorials/Wheat farming

This page is about wheat farming. For information on the systematic production of other resources, see Renewable Resources. For information on growing melons, see Melon Farming. For information on growing pumpkins, see Pumpkin Farming.

File:Cropsfullygrown.png

Crops ready to be harvested

(Wheat) Farming is a feature in Indev, Infdev, Alpha and Beta implemented on February 6th, 2010. It allows players to create farmland, plant seeds and harvest crops of wheat. Seeds can be found by destroying tall grass or by harvesting fully grown wheat.

Sowing

Wheat is farmed on Farmland. Seeds can be sown/planted on any farmland block where they will eventually grow. Seeds planted on hydrated farmland will grow faster than those on non-hydrated blocks. Wheat can also be grown at night by placing torches next to them, which will also prevent aggressive (except spiders) Mobs from spawning near them. However, if there is grass near the torches, this could also allow passive mobs to spawn, and they could destroy the wheat by walking on them. To stop this from happening, you can place Fences and no mob, passive or aggressive can get through (other than spiders in versions where spiders can climb), unless you make a Gate and leave it open.

Harvesting

Crops can be harvested at any time by left-click with any tool, but they will only yield wheat when the crop has changed from green to brown (second picture below). Harvesting crops at this time will yield between zero to three seeds, and one item of wheat, which can be crafted into Bread, Cake, or Cookies. In Creative mode, you can run/walk on top of it to harvest it but you need a run-up first.

A faster way to harvest many crops at the same time is to create an auto-harvester. Many tutorials are available on YouTube.

Note: In earlier versions of the game, such as Indev, wheat ceased growing one stage earlier (0x6 in the above image), at which point you were able to harvest wheat.

In-game wheat, at several stages

In some cases crops may be ready to harvest, despite looking too young to harvest. By placing and/or remove a torch, a player can force the neighboring tiles to visually update instantly, instead of at the normal pace of the game. A faster method for updating wheat is to right click the farmland/wheat with a hoe; this will not decrease the hoe's durability unless the ground underneath is not tilled. These techniques only update the appearance of the crops, which updates normally when neighboring crops are harvested; they will not speed up the growth of crops.

Growth and Destruction

Wheat crops will only grow under the following conditions:

• If there is at least 9 (light) level above them (not necessarily sunlight)
• If there is at least one block of space above the height of the fully grown crop (transparent blocks count as empty)

Wheat does not need water to grow, however wheat can also be destroyed if the farmland block they are placed on reverts to dirt.

If you right-click crops with Bone Meal selected, they will grow into full crops instantly.

Growth Rate

For the fastest growth, hydrated farmland with crops in rows is ideal. This increases the growth rate amount to the maximum of 10, as described below in pseudocode. Every second, crop can grow up 1 level with a probability of approximately growthRate percent. Wheat can grow to max size in just 7 seconds, but only has a chance of 0.00001%. Below is some pseudo-code to demonstrate how this is calculated:

getGrowthRate(crop)
{
    if (crop.getBlockBelow().isHydrated())
        growthRate = 4.0;
    else
        growthRate = 2.0;

    growthRate = growthRate + 0.75 * crop.CountHydratedFarmlandsIn8BlocksBelow()
                            + 0.25 * crop.CountDehydratedFarmlandsIn8BlocksBelow();

    if (  (crop.hasNeighborCropsNorthOrSouth() AND crop.hasNeighborCropsEastOrWest()) 
        OR crop.hasNeighborCropsDiagonally()  ) // any immediately diagonal square has a crops
    {
        growthRate = growthRate / 2;
    }
    return growthRate;
}

Note: As of Beta 1.2, you can use Bone Meal to fertilize crops, making them ready instantly. It doesn't matter if there are crops on neighboring farmland or not.

Example

Crops in the middle is on hydrated farmland surrounded by 8 hydrated farmland blocks. Growth rate is 4+8*0.75 = 10.

Crops on a hydrated farmland block surrounded by 7 hydrated farmland blocks has growth rate of 9.25 which is as good as 10 (because 100/10 and 100/9.25 both have same quotient = 10).

Crops in the middle is on hydrated farmland surrounded by 2 hydrated farmland blocks. Growth rate is 4+2*0.75 = 5.5.

Crops in the middle is on hydrated farmland surrounded by 8 hydrated farmland but have both NS and EW or diagonal neighbor crops. Growth rate is (4+8*0.75)/2 = 5.

This picture shows a wheat farm with optimal growth rate 9.25-10 (except at left and right edges of farm).

When seeds and time are not limiting factors, a single rectangle can be more productive per area than separated rows by increasing the number of crops growing at once. But it will take longer for all crops to mature. Which pattern is best depends on your situation and harvesting habits.

Automatic farming using pistons

Planted wheat can be "pushed" out of its place and turned into item form using a piston. This can be used to harvest crops almost automatically, as all you have to do is pick up the wheat. Here is an example of using pistons to farm:

When the pistons are activated, the planted wheat is pushed into the water, which then carries the items to an easily collectible area. However, the farmland will instantly revert to the standard dirt block; therefore, you will have to till the ground after every harvest.

Alternatively, with sticky pistons one can create an automatic farming method that does not destroy cropland and simply needs to be replanted. The wheat is turned into an item, falls into the water stream and floats downstream, ready for collection.

It is possible to add on to this and increase the number of harvested wheat.

Alternatively, a piston can be used to control the flow of water over the plants to be harvested. The water will harvest all plants and convert all the farmland back to dirt. This method needs a lot less pistons.

Tips

• Crops can be harvested quickly and easily from large farms in a very short period of time by redirecting water over the crops. As of Beta 1.5, fully grown crops will drop up to 3 seeds, but immature crops will not drop seeds. For a tutorial on a farm that harnesses this method, click here.
• A useful way to hyrdate your soil is by digging a drench full of water underneath your farmland, then placing dirt over it.

Trivia

• If running water flows into wheat, the crop will drop seeds (and wheat if mature), but only if the water flows into the wheat rather than dropping onto it from above. This can be used to make harvesting much faster and easier.

• Prior to Beta 1.6 and the introduction of tall grass, seeds were obtained by using a hoe on grass.

• Prior to the release of 1.0.0, if you placed fences under the hydrated dirt block, when you stepped on it they will not revert back to normal dirt. This did not work with nether fences.

See also

• Wheat Seeds
• Bone Meal
• Hoe
• Farmland