Farming Sugar Cane

Farming Sugar Cane

Sugar Cane

Sugar cane is the raw material for sugar and paper. Sugar is used in cooking; paper is used to make maps and books (which you need for Enchanting).

Sugar cane can be found growing next to water. It grows up to three blocks high; if you break off the middle and top blocks, leaving the bottom block in place, it will continue to grow. This makes sugar cane easy to farm as you don't need to replant if you harvest it carefully.

A Simple Sugar Cane Farm

Sugar Cane must be planted on dirt blocks that are next to water. It's best to use canals of running water so that cane when harvested will flow to the end of the stream for easy collection.

This layout works nicely.

Plant single blocks of sugar cane on all the dirt.

Planting complete.

Wait for the sugar cane to grow: remember to make sure that your plantation is well-lit so you don't have nasty surprise when you come back.

Ready to Harvest

Harvest the sugar cane by bashing the upper and middle blocks. Job done!

Automated Sugar Cane Farms

If you want a lot of sugar-cane — maybe you're making books for enchanting, or just a decorative library — consider making an automated farm that can be harvested at the push of a button.

It's easy to build automated sugar cane farms that use pistons to break off the top and middle sections of cane, leaving the rest to regrow.

The version I present here uses quite a lot of redstone, but below I will show a different version that uses less materials.

Materials

You will need 79 redstone, 32 iron bars, 96 wood planks, 20 sticks, 128 cobblestone and 5 smooth stone for components, plus more stone or cobblestone for building, 16 blocks of dirt and a bucket of water. Plus at least 1 piece of sugar cane to get started!

(The poor man's version requires only 42 redstone, 16 iron bars and 48 planks)

Space Required

This farm is very compact; 11 x 9 x 5 blocks high. You might want to connect several farms together if you want to harvest vast amounts of sugar cane, though.

1. Build The Base

Build the base: an 8-block canal with water placed at one end, flanked by strips of dirt. There is a 1 block-high wall next to the dirt.

2. Add Pistons

Make 32 pistons:

Arrange the pistons in two banks of 16 like so:

It may help to built a temporary wall of dirt to place the pistons against, if you're having trouble.

3. Wire Up the Pistons

Build a row of blocks level with the top row of pistons, 1 block away. Place redstone torches along the side of these blocks, facing the pistons, and place redstone dust along the top to form a wire.

Wiring up the pistons.

Underneath one end of the row of blocks, place a redstone torch. Place a stone button on the block underneath the redstone torch.

The red circle highlights a stone button; it would be easier to see on a different colour background!

Extend the wiring around the back of the farm so that it controls the pistons on the other side. A repeater is needed to make the current go far enough. Make sure you place it the right way round - there is a little arrow on it that points from right to left.

Make sure to leave a gap between the pistons at the back of the farm and your wiring.

Test your wiring! Push the button, and all of the pistons should extend momentarily.

5. Finishing Touches and Operation.

Add a roof and lighting if you like, but this is optional. Plant your sugar cane and wait for it to grow.

The finished sugar cane farm.

Ready to harvest.

When it is fully grown, push the button to harvest. Almost all of the sugar cane will fall into the water and be brought to you to pick up.

Push the button and collect your sugar cane.

Scaling up

It's easy to chain together a large number of these units if you want to harvest very large quantities of sugar cane.

This farm contains 80 of the units described above and will provide more than enough sugar cane to fill your inventory at the push of a button.

Full Automation

A competent redstone engineer could easily hook these farms up to a clock mechanism to pulse the pistons every 5–10 minutes and provide a steady stream of sugar cane.

Economy Version

Here is a cheaper version of a sugar-cane farm. It uses only 16 pistons, aimed at the middle sections of the sugar cane, and in this picture is operated by a pressure plate (wood or stone) in front of the collection point.

Instead of using the redstone torches, redstone wire is placed in a line along the top of blocks that are behind the pistons.

Farming Mushroom and trees

Mushrooms

Mushrooms are an excellent food source. They can be grown anywhere without water, and are the most nutritious food for vegan miners.

Wild Mushrooms

To make mushroom stew you need both red and brown mushrooms. Both can be found growing in many places, especially underground in caves and in swamps. Mushrooms are also very common in The Nether.

Cultivating Mushrooms

Growing conditions

Mushrooms can be planted on almost any surface that is not too brightly-lit (ie. not under direct sunlight, and at least 2 blocks away from a torch or other light source).
Mushrooms will slowly spread to nearby dirt blocks, as long as there are no more than 4 mushrooms of the same type in a 9x9 square. Therefore, a very spread-out mushroom farm in which one red and one brown mushroom are placed at widely-spaced intervals is somewhat practical.

This mushroom field has a roof to keep the sun off, and recessed lighting to prevent mobs from spawning. Mushrooms are planted 5 blocks apart in an alternating pattern of red and brown. Mushrooms can be planted on almost any block, but will only spread to dirt.

Huge Mushrooms

If you fertilise a mushroom by applying Bonemeal, it will sprout into a Huge Mushroom. When harvested it will yield up to 20 mushrooms. This is the most efficient way to farm mushrooms.

Planting

The mushroom must be planted on a dirt or grass block. You will need a lot of space.

Huge Mushroom Space Requirements
Mushroom Type	Horizontal space	Vertical Space
Brown	9x9 (4 blocks all sides)	8 blocks
Red	7x7 (3 blocks all sides)	6 clocks

When planted, right-click with bonemeal.

Harvesting

The mushroom can be harvested with a sword or other tool. Each block has a chance of producng a mushroom whe destroyed.

Automated Mushroom Farms

It is possible to build mushroom farms in the form of towers that have a stack of mushroom-growing floors, that are harvested at the push of a button. One good example is described here.

Growing Mushrooms in the Nether

Mushrooms are commonly found in the Nether, but do not spread over Netherrack. The best way to grow mushrooms there, then, is to bring some dirt and bonemeal from the Overworld and use the Huge Mushroom method.

Mushroom Stew

Mushroom Stew is made by combining one red mushroom, one brown mushroom, and a wooden bowl.

Note that the ingredients can be stacked in your inventory, but the stew can not.
The ingredients can be placed in any shape on the crafting area, so you do not need a crafting table to make the stew.

Mushroom Biomes

Mushroom biomes are proof that late nights and too many mushrooms can do strange things to a game developer. They are places where Huge Mushrooms grow, and where strange cow-like creatures called Mooshrooms live.

Mooshrooms

Mooshrooms can be sheared with a pair of shears, just like sheep, and provide mushrooms. They can also be 'milked' by right-clicking on them holding a wooden bowl. Instead of milk, however, you get mushroom soup. I am not making this up.

Mycelium

Mycelium is a special block similar to grass, that is only found in mushroom biomes. Like grass, mycelium will spread to cover adjacent dirt blocks. Mushrooms grow faster on mycelium and survive higher light levels than they do on other blocks. If you make a mushroom farm, it would be wise to use mycelium.
However, like grass, the only way you can dig up a mycelium block and carry it to your farm is with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch.

How to find a Mushroom Biome

Mushroom biomes are rare, and usually exist as remote islands in the ocean. However, if you just want to see one, here's how:

1. Start a new game.
2. In the 'Create New World' screen, click More World options...
3. Type the word lost into the box and continue to create the new world.

You should find yourself near a small mushroom biome.

Farming Trees in Minecraft

Saplings

When you break a leaf block, or when a leaf block decays after a tree has been cut down, there is a chance that it will drop a sapling. Plant some saplings in dirt on dirt or grass and you have a tree farm!

Tree Farms

Light

Trees need light to grow, so remember to place torches or other light sources about the place if you are growing trees indoors. Each sapling needs to be within 5 blocks of a light source.

Height

You can only harvest wood 7 blocks high from floor level, so it often makes sense to build a roof over the farm so that trees are never too high to harvest easily. A glass roof is a good idea as it lets light through. A roof with 7 blocks of space beneath it will allow oak, spruce and jungle trees to grow without being too tall.

Bonemeal

You can make trees grow faster if you apply bonemeal, however if you are in a small space you will waste a lot of bonemeal before the game chooses a small shape for the tree, so it's probably not worth it. The exception is giant jungle trees, which can only be grown with bonemeal.

Tree Types

What type of tree should you farm? If you want a particular type of wood, that makes the decision for you, but here are the practical considerations.

Oak

These are the commonest trees in Minecraft, and the best type for most tree farms. You can plant saplings right next to each other, whereas other types of tree need more space. This makes oaks the only choice for indoors or underground farms.
Most oaks are small enough to harvest easily, but sometimes they grow huge and have lots of branches. These are a real nuisance to harvest so you will definitely want a roof over your farm to prevent these from growing.

Renewable Planting

The number of saplings you get back depends on how many leaf blocks there are when you do your harvest. Because oaks can grow very close together, you might not get very many saplings if there are a lot of trees. Just make sure that the ones you do get are well-spaced, and you'll get plenty of leaves and therefore saplings next time.

Apples

Oak treas drop one apple for every 200 leaf blocks broken.

Birch

These trees need space to grow, so plant the saplings with two blocks gap between them. Birch trees grow very fast, and they never grow too tall to harvest from ground level so you won't need a roof.

Spruce

These don't make for a good farm, as they don't have as many leaves as other tree tyes and you don't get many saplings when you harvest them. Although they do grow taller than birch trees, you can harvest most of them by hopping up onto the bottom block after breaking the second and third ones, so a roof is not necessary. They need the same wide spacing as birch trees, so a roof is rather impractical.

Jungle Trees

The normal-sized jungle trees are a nuisance to grow: they're too tall to farm easily without a roof, and when a tree grows any saplings on the ground next to them pop out of the ground and are lost.
The jungle giant form can be grown by planting 4 saplings in a square and applying bonemeal. This is a quick way to gain a lot of wood, although harvesting it is quite a job. You can either climb all the way to the top on vines, then harvest the wood on the way down, or chop your way up to the top making a spiral staircase as you go. It's not the most efficient way to farm wood, but it's more fun (until you fall to your death.)