6. Crop Farming

In This Chapter

Become self-sufficient with your first crops and optimize your farm.

Learn the secrets of hydration; it doesn’t take much to do a lot.

Harvest your farm with one click of a button.

Build a fully automated water harvester.

Farming is fun. There, I said it. I’m not talking about turning your Minecraft character into Farmer Joe and chomping on a stalk of wheat while slopping out a pigsty. I mean farming the Minecraft way.

Farming in Minecraft refers to any system that creates renewable resources. This concept goes well beyond a simple wheat field. It includes growing a host of different crops that all have specific purposes and creating fully automated hands-off harvesting systems. This chapter takes you through the elements of a crop farm and how to transform harvesting from a multi-click chore to one push of a button or twitch of a lever.

Wheat is the most useful crop to farm initially as three wheat sheaves crafted into bread forms a useful food staple, and wheat is also used for breeding cows, sheep, and mooshrooms, as well as for taming horses. It’s also easy to get started for two reasons:

You can find the seeds just about anywhere by knocking down tall grass. Besides planting wheat fields, you can also use seeds to breed chickens.

Wheat will grow quite happily without water, although it does grow faster with hydration available.

First find your seeds. You don’t need many. When harvested, all growable crops drop up to three times as many seeds as they take to plant. This means you can start with a small stock and quickly expand your plantation as the plants mature. Just harvest, replant, and repeat until the crop reaches your target size. Under optimal conditions, the crop will reach maturity in two to three day/night cycles.

Before you get started, here are some tips to keep in mind:

All crops except cocoa beans grow faster when planted near water.

All crops except cocoa and sugar cane need their soil prepared with a hoe, to convert dirt or grass blocks into farmland blocks.

The hoe is your mainstay farming tool, so we should quickly review its crafting recipe. Essentially, a hoe is simply two sticks combined with two wood planks (any variety), cobblestone, iron ingot, gold ingot, or diamond.

Use a perimeter fence at least one block high—or two of any other type of block—to prevent mobs from overrunning your farm and trampling your carefully grown produce. The fence won’t keep out spiders, but they don’t trample crops.

All crops grow better in light. Use torches to keep the area well lit at night and to prevent mob spawning.

Crops can also be grown underground, as long as you provide plenty of light.

You don’t need an enormous farm to become completely self-sufficient. Figure 6.1 shows an example of a farm with every possible crop planted, as well as pens for chickens, pigs, cows, and sheep. It’s about as close as you’ll get in Minecraft to having your own supermarket.

Once a farm is established, it doesn’t require constant tending. Mature crops don’t rot or decay and can be harvested any time you need to top up your pantry.

Each Minecraft crop has some unique characteristics. Table 6.1 provides a full rundown of them all. (Minecraft v1.9 has added a beetroot crop, and you’ll find it in village farms. Harvest and replant it the same way as wheat. Beetroot cures hunger, but not health.)

To begin, mark out an area sufficient to fit your wheat farm. (Don’t worry, we’ll expand it to other foods later.) A single block of water can hydrate a 9×9 square of farmland blocks, if it is positioned in the middle (see Figure 6.3). You end up with 4 blocks of farm space in each direction from the water block, which means you have a total of 80 farmable blocks (remember that the one in the center is occupied by the water). Each block provides 1 bushel, or a total across the plantation of 26 loaves of bread each harvest. That’s a lot of produce—more than you need—so you might consider starting with something a little smaller. A benefit here is that a smaller area is also easier to fence.

In Figure 6.4, I’ve laid out a smaller field of 35 farmland blocks. The lake provides hydration down one side, extending in a total of three rows from the fence bordering the lake. The single water block on the other side hydrates the rest. Placing a path up the middle isn’t strictly necessary because there’s no reason you can’t trample up and down the field during the harvest, working your way in from the edges while holding down the left Shift key to sneak across the fields, but I prefer touches like this for aesthetic reasons. Also, particular blocks will mature earlier than others, and the path ensures access to mature blocks in the middle of the field so you don’t have to walk over planted ground to reach them.

The first harvest in this 35-block farm provides a total of 16 bushels of wheat and 27 seeds. The bushels produce 5 loaves of bread, with 1 bushel left over. The 27 seeds are almost sufficient now to plant the entire field; just 8 blocks are still vacant. They’ll be planted with the seeds from the next harvest, shown in Figure 6.5.

The steps for creating your own field are quite easy:

1. Find a suitable area, or create your own by flattening the landscape and adding dirt blocks where needed.

2. If a water source isn’t available nearby, craft a bucket from three iron ingots, place it in a quick access slot, and then fill it from a source. You’ll need to right-click the bucket on a water source block to successfully fill it.

Water source blocks are present anywhere there is water, but water can also flow seven blocks from the source, so you may need to try clicking several times to get to the actual source block. You also need to be playing in Survival mode because buckets don’t fill in Creative mode.

3. Use a hoe to till any grassy or dirt blocks into farmland.

4. Put up a fence or erect any other barrier two blocks high to keep out mobs. To create a fence that’s three panels, you need a set of two sticks and four planks. While it can be difficult to spot the visual difference between a gate and a fence, especially if you’re making a dash for safety, fences and gates take on the color of the wood from which they are made, so try using one material for fences and another gates. You can also build fences from stone, including mossy blocks for that slightly rundown look.

5. Fences are actually 1.5 blocks high and so can’t be jumped. Add a gate for easy access.

6. Add some torches to the perimeter to ensure that mobs don’t spawn inside the field and also to keep the crops growing through the night.

7. Plant the seeds you collected previously by right-clicking on the tilled blocks.

Give the crop a little time to grow. It can take a few day/night cycles, depending on light conditions, although it might take just two if lighting and hydration are optimal. Wheat bushels are only produced from mature wheat crops that have reached their final stage of growth. When the tops of the crop turn brown, they’re ready.

You can use any tool to harvest the wheat because harvesting does not impact durability. Just left-click each crop block and pick up the results.

Figure 6.5 shows the second crop ready to harvest; it produces 27 bushels and 43 seeds.

It won’t take long until you are producing more than enough wheat and seeds. Keep them handy. You can use wheat to lure and breed cows, sheep, and mooshrooms, and you can use seeds to do the same with chickens. See Chapter 7, “Farming and Taming Mobs,” for more information.

Figure 6.6 shows an alternate farm layout with two raised beds to make harvesting easier. You can just run up and down the aisle with the left mouse button held down, quickly collecting the wheat. When planting, do the same with the right mouse button held down. The central water troughs collect any harvested bushels and seeds that fall into them and sweep them to the end of the rows for easier collection, although you’ll need to run around to pick up any strays that didn’t get knocked in. Arranging this system correctly is quite important. Follow these steps:

1. Make two raised beds, each 17 dirt blocks long, leaving a single row in between. I generally make the beds 2 blocks wide.

2. Place 2 blocks on top of each other directly in the middle—that’s 9 blocks from the end—and attach a torch to each side of the top block that faces water. Leave the other sides free so that you can plant crops on the two adjacent farmland blocks. The additional light will help your crops grow. In Figure 6.6, I’ve also placed a jack-o’-lantern on the center block because lanterns throw out a bit more light than torches, and if you squint hard, they look a tiny bit like a scarecrow’s head.

3. Place a water source on either side of this block. Each water source creates a river that runs down the central channel, ending after exactly 8 blocks, directly aligned with the end of each row.

4. Build a nice cobblestone path all the way around, as shown in Figure 6.6, if you like. It’s not necessary but nice to do it. For a more rustic look, you may want to use pressed dirt, introduced in Minecraft v1.9.

5. Fence the area any way that works for you and hoe and plant the blocks. You’ll find it easiest to work on the inner section of each bed, first running along the edge, holding down your left mouse button to till the blocks and then, with seeds selected, using your right mouse button to quickly plant them.

6. When harvest time comes, use any tool to quickly knock out the wheat and seeds. Most that are flung away from you will wind up in the water and wash down toward each end of the beds. Because the beds are hydrated, you can also run up and down them to pick up any seeds or wheat left behind without too much worry about reverting the beds to dirt blocks. Dry beds revert much faster than hydrated ones!

7. Knock the mud out of your shoes (just kidding) and go make some bread.

Pistons cut across the top of the crop, sweeping the harvest into a channel of water that carries it to a convenient central collection point.

Pistons move the block on which the crop stands, shaking the harvest loose.

A torrent of water floods the entire crop, carrying the harvest down to a single location. The water can be controlled using pistons or a water dispenser and, if set up in a farm adjacent to a village, receives the added bonus that villagers will replant the crop for you with a combination of wheat, potatoes, and carrots.

Figure 6.7 shows a piston farm that uses the first two methods mentioned earlier: using a piston to cut the top of the crop and shaking the farmland itself to break loose the harvest.

The principles used in Figure 6.7 are simple. Pulling the lever with a right-click of the mouse causes the sticky pistons to extend (see Figure 6.8). This pushes the raised farmland across the top of the lower rows, harvesting those crops by scraping them into the central water channel. At the same time, the movement of the raised farmland causes its crops to shake loose. Return the lever to its off position, and the pistons retreat. Because they are sticky, they also pull the attached farmland block back to its original position.

The only problem with this method is that a lot of the harvest falls outside the collection channel. Also, as you can see from Figure 6.9, once the pistons retract, the entire lower section has to be hoed again, and the upper farmland blocks revert quite quickly because they’re not hydrated. There’s a fairly easy fix, though: Strategically position water blocks at each end of the upper rows, as shown in Figure 6.10.

Building an automated farm can be quite resource intensive. The basic piston used for cutting a crop requires three wood plank blocks, four pieces of cobblestone, an iron ingot, and one redstone. If you’ve mined extensively and knocked out enough wood, you’ll likely have plenty of materials at your disposal, but it may get trickier when you build the sticky piston used for pushing farmland. You build this from a standard piston and a block of slime. If you haven’t come across any slime mobs during your travels, you’ll need to find a way to get to a swamp biome for the slime spawning grounds or head into a cave structure where you may be lucky enough (if fighting a giant blob of slime can be considered such) to find a few oozing their way across the floor.

However, building an automated farm can also be a great way to learn about some of Minecraft’s advanced features. It may all seem a bit confusing at first, but once you have the basic moves down, the rest is really just a repetition of those building blocks. It won’t take you long to start developing some quite amazing layouts. Let’s look at the different methods step by step.

Building this is easy, and it’s a great way to get a basic understanding of how all this automated stuff works. Just follow these steps:

1. Dig a hole for your water supply and fill it from a water bucket.

2. Hoe the grass or dirt block to turn it into farmland and plant some seeds.

3. Create a standard piston. Minecraft always places pistons so that the face of the piston points toward you, snapping toward the closest of the six possible degrees of orientation, so place this one by standing on the block next to the water supply, facing the farmland block. Right-click to place the piston on the far side of that block.

4. Place a dirt, wood, cobblestone, or other kind of solid block behind the piston.

5. Craft a wooden button from wood planks and right-click to place it on the side of the block behind the piston.

Position yourself close to the button and right-click it to operate the piston. The piston powers up, sweeping the crop off its farmland block. The harvest may spring directly into your inventory, depending on how close you are standing, or it might float around waiting for you to collect it. The piston automatically retracts after a brief delay because buttons send just a brief pulse of power.

Well done! That’s all there is to creating a simple piston harvester.

One piston an automated farm does not make, but it’s remarkably easy to extend this design into one that is much more effective. Follow these steps:

1. Replicate the same pattern right next to your first harvester, minus the button on the side of any but the first block.

2. Run a little trail of redstone dust (right-click on the top of each block with redstone selected in your quick access bar) to create a circuit that links each from the first to the last. Figure 6.12 shows what this ends up looking like.

3. Click the button again to push the pistons out in unison.

4. For extra props, create the sticky piston harvester and add an extra block of harvesting to each piston on every click of that button.

Start by crafting a sticky piston using a standard piston and a slimeball (the sticky part). Then follow the same routine as for a simple piston harvester but place an additional dirt block directly in front of the piston, hoe it to turn it into farmland, and plant seeds on it and the farmland block in front.

There’s just one problem with using the button system. It’s fine for a single row of crops, but it can’t handle an entire farm’s harvest. What if you wanted to create a system where the entire farm’s harvesting is automated with a single click?

Running redstone along the ground provides a central control panel and a coordinated system across multiple crop rows. It has many benefits and takes only a few more steps.

Just decide on a central point, put the button on a block, and run a redstone trail back to the pistons from either side of that block. Redstone currents run for only 15 blocks. Insert redstone repeaters if the trail is longer.

There are two basic methods:

Use a piston to drop water from a raised water source so that it flows out over the farmland.

Use a dispenser containing a filled water bucket to send out a stream of water.

Figure 6.14 shows a farm built using the first method.

The layout of the piston system is a little difficult to detect in a completed working farm, so Figure 6.15 shows a simplified view. The water source is held in place by the surrounding blocks. In Minecraft’s geometry, the extended piston beneath also prevents it from flowing down. However, as soon as that piston is retracted, the pathway through the block under the water opens, allowing the water to flow out over the crops.

Levers work better than buttons on this type of layout because you want the water to keep flowing until the crop has been washed away. Make one with a block of cobblestone and a stick.

When creating this type of farm, make sure you build up all the surrounding components, including the pistons—powered and therefore extended—before you place the water sources in the upper reservoir. Otherwise, you have to wade through a constant flow of water, fighting the current, as you build the rest of the farm. You also can’t place redstone dust in water, and that can make the wiring somewhat challenging if any water has escaped to places it shouldn’t.

The other method described earlier relies on a dispenser block. Figure 6.16 shows a simplified view that you can easily extrapolate into a complete farm.

The dispenser layout is easier to build than the water-drop used previously but also more resource-intensive because dispensers require redstone, an undamaged bow, cobblestone, and, in this case, a bucket filled with water.

Place the dispenser with its outlet facing the crops. Then right-click the dispenser to open its own inventory window. Place a full water bucket in one of the slots. Your dispenser is locked and loaded!

Finally, rather than using a lever, I’ve used a wooden button attached to the side. Just right-click the button to start the flow of water and right-click again to stop it. Connect a number of dispensers in sequence by running redstone dust along the top of each block. That single button still controls them all.

Harvest sugar cane using a standard piston raised above ground level (see Figure 6.17). This piston is operated from a lever made from cobblestone and a stick.

The piston shears off the sugar cane, leaving the original stalk still planted so that it can grow again.

Harvest any other crop by placing pistons beside the main stem’s growth blocks. As with sugar cane, the piston shears off the crop, leaving the original plant untouched.

Start farming with very simple layouts, choosing the crops according to whatever you can gather from nearby biomes. If there’s no tall grass for wheat seeds, look for a nearby village and pinch some potatoes and carrots while you’re there. Avoid food poisoning by baking your potatoes in a furnace before consuming them—unless you are in desperate straits. Only poisonous potatoes are dangerous, and you can usually tell the difference, but why take the chance? Melons also provide a steady source of nutrition, although they satisfy only 1.2 hunger points per slice. Cocoa beans, pumpkins, and sugar cane all require at least wheat to become food grade, so it’s best not to start with them.

Of course, cows, pigs, rabbits, and chickens are all good sources of food, and there is one other natural harvest worth mentioning: fungi. Find some small red and brown mushrooms or break up a couple of the giant ones that pepper the landscape, and you can make a hearty mushroom stew that also provides a huge 7.2 points of saturation. First create a wooden bowl from three wood plank blocks (bonus: you’ll get four bowls from this) and then arrange the mushrooms and bowl on the crafting table. Yum!