How Long Does Sugar Cane Take to Grow in Minecraft? (Including Tips!)

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If you've recently started farming in Minecraft, you may be surprised by the number of different crops you can cultivate! There are many other options for what to grow, all with their own specific needs and developing timelines. I'm going to focus on one plant, particularly today: sugarcane! Sugar cane is a tall plant that naturally generates near water in the Overworld.

Sugar cane is valuable for crafting other items like sugar and paper. If you're interested in learning how long sugar cane takes to grow in Minecraft, along with some farming and crafting tips, check out the rest of the article below!

Farming Sugarcane

Sugar cane is easy to cultivate if you have the correct setup! Since sugar cane naturally generates near water, you must build some canals between rows of dirt blocks. This will allow the crops to be irrigated properly.

Compared to other crops, you don't need to till the dirt before planting sugar cane. In fact, you don't even need to plant sugar cane in the dirt! It will take root in sand and dirt blocks if the block is directly adjacent to water. For more info on growing sugar cane, check out this other article on my blog!

Here's an example of a sugar cane farming setup. It's fancier than I described before, with added stone blocks and lanterns. Still, it's fundamentally the same: water between the dirt blocks to irrigate the sugar cane!

How Long Does Sugar Cane Take to Grow?

Sugar cane is one of the slowest-growing crops in Minecraft. In Minecraft terms, a "tick" is a unit of time in the game. Sugar cane grows one block every 16 "random ticks," or approximately every eighteen real-world minutes. It will take about 54 real-world minutes for sugar cane to reach its maximum height of three blocks.

Despite its slow-growing time, there's a great trick when harvesting sugar cane that will make farming easier! When harvesting the crop, hit the top and middle blocks of the sugar cane, but leave the lowest block. The sugar cane plant will continue to grow this way, so you don't need to worry about replanting it!

Now What?

Now that you've harvested some of this sugary crop, what can you do with it? As it turns out, you can do lots!

Of course, you can use sugar cane to craft sugar, which can then be used to make food. For example, with sugar and other ingredients, you can make cake, pie, and even a poisonous fermented spider eye (make sure not to eat that last one)! Place the sugar cane in the middle block of your crafting table to craft sugar!

Aside from being a baking ingredient, sugar cane is the raw material used to make paper! Paper will be incredibly useful as you progress through the game when you can use it to create maps and books.

Books can be used at an enchanting table; enchanting is a great way to make your weapons and tools more powerful. To craft paper, place three sugar canes on the bottom three blocks of your crafting table. This will produce three pieces of paper!

Final Thoughts

Despite the slow-growing time of sugar cane, this crop is handy and easy to cultivate. If you harvest it correctly, you'll only need to plant this crop once, making it one of the easier plants to grow in Minecraft. Its uses as a baking ingredient and crafting paper make this crop well worth the wait!