1 - Crop
Needs 7 growth advances to fully mature (8 stages).2 - Planting layout
Planted rows separated by empty rows. No diagonal same-crop, so no penalty. Best per-plant speed and the best overall throughput.
Farmland stays moist within 4 blocks (and 1 above) of water. Moist farmland counts as 3 points each, dry counts as 1.
3 - Random tick speed
Default is 3. Each block gets a 3/4096 chance of a random tick per game tick (20 ticks per second). Higher values speed everything up proportionally.
Average time to mature
23:54minutes:seconds23 min 54 s on average | alternating rowsLayout comparison
Wheat, moist farmland, randomTickSpeed 3. Time is per plant; crops/hour is for a filled 9x9 plot (81 tiles) at each layout's planting density.
| Layout | Points | Time / plant | Crops / plot / hr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solid field /2 | 5 | 47:47 | 102 |
| Alternating rows | 10 | 23:54 | 113 |
| Checkerboard /2 | 5 | 47:47 | 51 |
| Single row | 10 | 23:54 | 23 |
Alternating rows win on per-plant speed (no /2 penalty) and on total yield. A solid field grows each plant at half speed but packs in 81 plants, so it stays close on crops per hour while needing far less floor space.
Assumptions
Times are statistical averages, not fixed timers. A fully loaded chunk where the plant sits inside the random-tick region, the player nearby. Growth advances when a random tick lands on the block (randomTickSpeed/4096 chance per game tick, 20 ticks per second) and the per-tick growth roll of 1 / (floor(25 / points) + 1) succeeds. Any single plant can mature faster or slower; over a whole field these averages hold. Sugar cane, cactus and bamboo grow in height on random ticks under a different mechanic and are not covered by this seed-to-mature formula.
Crops do not grow on a timer. Each plant only advances when a random tick lands on it and a growth roll succeeds. The roll is 1 / (floor(25 / growth points) + 1), and growth points come from the farmland around the crop: a fully watered, uncrowded plant scores 10 points and rolls a 1 in 3 chance per random tick, while dry or packed planting drags that down. More points means a higher chance, which means a faster average time to mature.
The points start at 1.0. The game then looks at the 3x3 patch of farmland under and around the crop. The tile directly under the plant counts at its full value, and each of the 8 surrounding farmland tiles counts at a quarter of its value. A tile is worth 3 points when moist (within 4 blocks of water) and 1 point when dry. So a perfectly watered, isolated crop is 1 + 3 + 8 x (3 / 4) = 10 points; an all-dry isolated crop is 1 + 1 + 8 x (1 / 4) = 4 points.
There is one catch. If the same crop crowds a plant, the game halves the total. Specifically, the penalty hits if the same crop sits on both the north and south neighbours and both the east and west neighbours (fully surrounded), OR if the same crop is on any of the four diagonals. That means a solid field and a checkerboard both take the halving, while alternating rows and a single row do not. A watered but packed crop therefore lands at 10 / 2 = 5 points.
| Layout | Points (moist) | Chance / tick | Points (dry) | Chance / tick |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alternating rows | 10 | 1 / 3 | 4 | 1 / 7 |
| Single row | 10 | 1 / 3 | 4 | 1 / 7 |
| Solid field | 5 | 1 / 6 | 2 | 1 / 13 |
| Checkerboard | 5 | 1 / 6 | 2 | 1 / 13 |
Random ticks are what drive all of this. Every block in a loaded chunk section has a randomTickSpeed / 4096 chance to receive a random tick on each of the 20 game ticks per second. With the default randomTickSpeed of 3, that is a 3 in 4096 chance per tick. Combine the random-tick chance with the growth roll and you get the average time to advance one stage.
Because each moist tile is worth 3 points and each dry tile only 1, watering your farm is the single biggest lever on growth speed. Moist rows score 10 points and roll 1 in 3, while the same rows left dry score 4 points and roll only 1 in 7. In practice that turns roughly 24 minutes of average wheat growth into roughly 56 minutes. One water source hydrates farmland in a 9x9 area centred on it (4 blocks out in every direction), and the water can sit one block below the farmland surface, so a single central water block keeps an 81-tile plot moist.
The times below assume a fully loaded chunk with the plant inside the random-tick region and the default randomTickSpeed of 3. They are averages, not fixed countdowns: a single plant might race ahead or lag behind, but across a whole field the numbers hold.
| Crop | Advances | Moist rows | Moist solid field | Dry rows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 7 | 23:54 | 47:47 | 55:45 |
| Carrots | 7 | 23:54 | 47:47 | 55:45 |
| Potatoes | 7 | 23:54 | 47:47 | 55:45 |
| Beetroot | 3 | 10:14 | 20:29 | 23:54 |
| Pumpkin / melon stem | 7 | 23:54 | 47:47 | 55:45 |
Wheat, carrots and potatoes all need 7 advances, so they share the same times. Beetroot needs only 3 advances and matures much faster. Pumpkin and melon use a stem that matures on this same formula, then the grown stem spawns a fruit on a separate, slower random-tick check, so the stem time is not the time to your first pumpkin. Nether wart needs 3 advances but ignores farmland and water completely and grows at a fixed random-tick rate. Sugar cane, cactus and bamboo are different again: they grow in height on random ticks rather than through seed stages, with bamboo the fastest of the three.
The same-crop penalty makes layout matter as much as water. Alternating rows (a planted row, then an empty or path row, repeating) keep every plant clear of diagonal same-crop neighbours, so they avoid the /2 halving and grow at full 10-point speed. A solid field and a checkerboard both trip the penalty and grow each plant at 5 points, roughly half speed.
So per plant, rows are the clear winner. For total food out of a fixed 9x9 plot it is closer, because a solid field packs in 81 plants against about 45 for rows, and that density nearly cancels the speed penalty. Alternating rows still come out ahead on both fronts, which is why they are the standard for an efficient farm: top per-plant speed and the best crops-per-hour throughput. A single row is fast per plant but wastes the plot. The calculator above ranks all four for your exact crop, hydration and randomTickSpeed, both by time per plant and by crops per 9x9 plot per hour.
Two more notes. Bone meal bypasses all of this by forcing growth advances directly, ignoring points and random ticks. And light level 9 or higher is required for crops to grow at all, but it does not change the speed once met, so torches over a covered farm keep growth running through the night without affecting any of these numbers.
On well-watered farmland planted in rows, wheat takes about 24 minutes on average to go from seed to fully grown, but this is a statistical average, not a fixed timer. Wheat needs 7 growth advances and each advance only happens when a random tick lands on the block (a 3 in 4096 chance per game tick at the default randomTickSpeed) and the growth roll succeeds. A packed solid field is halved in speed, so the same wheat takes about 48 minutes per plant there.
Yes. Moist farmland is worth 3 growth points per block versus 1 point for dry farmland in the CropBlock formula, so hydration more than doubles your growth points. A fully moist, isolated crop scores 10 points and rolls a 1 in 3 growth chance per random tick, while dry farmland scores only 4 points and rolls 1 in 7. Keep every farmland tile within 4 blocks of water (a 9x9 plot watered from the centre) and 1 block below the surface.
Rows grow each plant about twice as fast. The game halves a crop's growth points whenever a same-crop block sits on a diagonal or surrounds it, which happens in a solid field and a checkerboard but not in alternating rows or a single row. Per plant, rows win clearly. For total yield from a fixed plot the solid field stays close because it holds far more plants, but rows give you the best of both: top speed and strong throughput.
randomTickSpeed is a game rule (default 3) that sets how many random ticks each block in a chunk section receives. Every block has a randomTickSpeed/4096 chance of a random tick on each of the 20 game ticks per second. Crops, saplings, fire and other time-based blocks all advance on random ticks, so raising randomTickSpeed speeds up crop growth proportionally, and setting it to 0 freezes growth entirely.
No, the opposite. Crops grow faster when they are NOT crowded by the same crop. If the same crop touches a plant on a diagonal, or surrounds it on both the north-south and east-west axes, the game halves that plant's growth points. Planting in straight single-file rows with an empty row or path between them avoids the penalty completely, so spaced rows beat a tightly packed block of the same crop.
Carrots and potatoes use the exact same formula as wheat: 7 growth advances, so on moist rows they average about 24 minutes per plant and about 48 minutes in a packed field. Beetroot is faster because it only needs 3 advances, around 10 minutes on moist rows. Nether wart also needs 3 advances but ignores farmland and water entirely and grows at a fixed random-tick rate.
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