The Best Ways to Build a Sugar Cane Farm in Minecraft

Creating a Manual Sugar Cane Farm

Gather sugar cane. In order to find sugar cane, you'll first need to find some. Sugar cane grows near water and ice. It can grow on grass, dirt, coarse dirt, rooted dirt, sand, red sand mud, podzol, mycelium, or moss.

Find some flat land to make your farm. You'll need a fairly large, flat area with enough dirt or grassland to construct a farm with all the sugar cane crops you want to plant.

Dig trenches or holes for water. You can either dig trenches to put sugar cane on both sides, or individual holes. Make sure your holes or trenches are spaced at least 2 blocks apart. The trenches can be as long as you want, or you can dig as many holes as you want. Digging individual holes instead of trenches will allow you to have four blocks for sugar cane per hole instead of two. Click and hold (or hold the right trigger button) to dig. You don't need any tools to dig, but it will be quicker if you use a shovel.

Fill the holes or trenches with water. Use a bucket to gather water from any water source. Then dump the water in your trenches or holes.

Place the sugar cane along the sides of your trenches or water holes. Sugar cane can grow as long as it is planted on a viable block next to water. Equip some sugar cane in your hand and right-click (or press the left trigger button) to plant the sugar cane on block you want to plant it.

Wait for the sugar cane to grow. On average, it takes sugar cane up to 18 minutes to grow three blocks tall.

Harvest your sugar cane. You can start harvesting your sugar cane when it grows at least 2 blocks tall. You do not need any tools to harvest it. You can just use your hands. Harvest it by punching it one block above the ground. This will break the sugar cane above the first block, but leave the base still planted so it can continue to grow and produce more sugar cane. Walk over the dropped sugar cane to collect it. If you break the base of the sugar cane, you will need to plant more sugar cane.

Making a Mechanical Farm

Gather sugar cane. In order to find sugar cane, you'll first need to find some. Sugar cane grows near water and ice.

Create an enclosure for your farm. Place blocks around the edge of the farm. It can be made out of any building block you want. The enclosure should be 4 x 21 blocks wide for a single chest, or 4 x 22 blocks wide for a double-wide chest. The inside of the enclosure should be 2 x 19 or 2 x 20 blocks.

Place a row of plantable blocks inside the enclosure. Sugar cane can grow grass, dirt, coarse dirt, rooted dirt, sand, red sand, mud, podzol, mycelium, or moss blocks. Place a row of plantable blocks along one of the rows inside your enclosure. There should be an empty trench in front of the plantable blocks.

Dump water on both ends of the empty trench. Use a bucket to gather water from any water source. Dump the water on both ends of the trench in your enclosure. Do not fill the trench. Just dump one bucket on both ends. This will create a slant with water flowing towards the center. There should be three or four blocks in the center that do not have water.

Dig up the blocks that don't have water. Use your hand or a shovel to dig up the dirt blocks in the middle that don't have water on top of them. This creates a space for sugar cane to fall in.

Place a chest in the middle of the center of the space. You can use a single or double-wide chest. Place it in the center of the pit you just dug. There should be a space on both sides of the chest. You may also want to carve out a space in front of the chest so that you can access it. You can remove the blocks of the structure in front of the chest as well.

Place a hopper on both sides of the chest. Equip a hopper, hold Shift and right-click the side of the chest to place a hopper connected to the chest. It should go in the space on the side of the chest. Connect another hopper to the other side of the chest. You can craft a chest from eight wooden plank blocks using a crafting table. You can craft a hopper from five iron ingots and a chest using a crafting table.

Plant the sugar cane. Now that you have a trench with water, you can plant your sugar cane in the plantable blocks. You will not be able to plant sugar cane in front of the blocks that don't have water in front of them.

Place a row of blocks behind the sugar cane. This gives you a ledge to place pistons on top of.

Place pistons on top of the back row facing the sugar cane. Place the pistons on top of the wall behind the sugar cane so that the piston is facing the sugar cane. You can craft a piston from 4 cobblestone blocks, 3 wooden plank blocks, 1 iron ingot, and one red stone dust using a crafting table.

Place another row of blocks behind the pistons. Again, you can use any type of block you want. Place it behind the pistons.

Place a row of observers on top of the pistons. Make sure you place the observers so that the eyes are facing the sugar cane. The observers will automatically activate the pistons when the sugar cane grows to be three blocks tall. Observers can be crafted from six cobblestone blocks, two redstone dust, and one Nether quartz using a crafting table.

Place a row of Redstone dust behind the observers. Go along the row of building blocks behind the observers and place redstone dust behind each observer. This powers the pistons and the observers. Redstone dust can be mined from Redstone ore, which can be found underground in caves. It's the stone blocks with red spots. You need an iron pickaxe or stronger to mine it.

Place a button behind the enclosure. Place on any of the top blocks that have the redstone on top of them. This will allow you to manually activate the pistons and harvest the sugar cane at any time. That way you don't have to wait until they grow to three blocks high.

Build a wall of class in front of the farm. This will ensure that the harvested sugar cane will fall into the water trench so that it will get funneled into the hoppers. This completes your farm. When any sugar cane crop grows to three blocks tall, the observers will activate the pistons. The pistons will push the sugar cane into the water trench where they will be funneled into the hoppers and into the chest. You can collect the sugar cane from the chest.