Tree Farming in Minecraft

1. Appropriate sapling
2. Bone Meal (Optional)

If you want to farm trees you will need saplings. Luckily every tree in Minecraft will drop saplings from their leaves at a 5% chance, 2.5% chance for jungle trees. This chance is increased for each level of fortune you use to hit the leaves capping out at 10% and 4.17% for jungle saplings. If you want to quickly grow trees you can use bone meal to speed up the process.

Most trees require a decent amount of space and some even have specific conditions. Oak, birch, spruce, and acacia trees can be grown from one sapling at a time. Placing any of these saplings with enough space above them and bone mealing them enough times will result in a mature fully grown tree. The height and general configuration of the tree will change depending on the available space above the sapling.

Oak saplings can sometimes grow into much larger trees and require a 3x3 column of space above it with at least 5 spaces above in order for it to grow successfully. Birch and acacia follow the same rule except it cannot grow into a large tree and requires at least 6 spaces above.

Spruce trees can be grown as long as there are 7 spaces above the tree in a 5x5 column. However, there is a variant of the spruce tree that you can grow if you plant 4 saplings in a 2x2 space and there exist 14 spaces above the tree in a 6x6 column.

Jungle trees and dark oak trees require certain special conditions. Like the super spruce tree, you will need to plant 4 saplings in a 2x2 space in order for a fully mature tree to grow. Unlike the spruce tree, you have to have 4 saplings to grow a mature tree. Since jungle saplings are rarer than others you may want to consider whacking the leaves with a fortune enchantment to get enough jungle saplings.

The base of the jungle and dark oak trees have 4 blocks which is why it requires 4 saplings. Dark oak trees require 7 spaces above the saplings in a 4x4 column. Jungle trees require at least 5 blocks of space above the saplings in a 3x3 column.

Every tree can be cut down with an axe. If you want to avoid hacking away at leaves all day, you can break all the raw wood blocks in the leaves and the leaves will begin to deteriorate on their own. Jungle trees are special in that you can plant cocoa beans on the trunks of them to grow more cocoa beans.

Every other tree is relatively simple and with the 2x2 trees, you can easily procure every wooden block by carving a staircase upwards and mining your way back down.

If you grow an oak or birch tree within 2 blocks of any flower there is a 5% chance that it will spawn with a bee nest and 1-3 bees in it.

In a Nutshell:

Trees are an integral part of building in Minecraft. Not only are they nice building blocks, but they are required for crafting the building blocks of crafting. You need them for crafting sticks, crafting tables, torches, tools, etc. Knowing how each tree operates can help you understand why a tree is not growing or what to expect from the larger variants of trees. Farming trees becomes much less frustrating once you understand their specific conditions.

Congratulations, you now know how every tree in Minecraft grows. Saplings are very common, and while you may want to stockpile them to prevent a lack of wood in your storage, each sapling will grant you more saplings from its mature tree. Knowing the specific conditions of trees can help you understand why a tree is growing or why a large variant of the tree is not growing. Understanding this will make gathering wood much easier.

Q. What trees require special conditions in order to grow?

A. The dark oak, jungle, and super spruce trees require 4 total saplings in order to grow successfully. They each require their own dimensions of space and knowing the intricacies behind them can help save you a lot of time in gathering the wood or simply getting the tree to grow.

Q. Can you bonemeal dark oak saplings into mature trees?

A. You can bone meal any tree into growing into a mature tree. As long as the space above the saplings is valid, each time you bone meal the saplings has a chance to successfully instantly grow the tree into a mature tree. For the trees that require 2x2 saplings, it does not matter which sapling you bone meal.

Q. Can you grow Trees in any biome in Minecraft?

A. Once you have obtained the saplings, you do not need to be in a specific biome in order to get the trees to grow. You can easily have jungle trees in the desert, acacia trees outside of badlands, and oak trees in snowy mountains. As long as you have the dirt and the correct dimensions you can even grow trees underground.