How to make a Minecraft bamboo farm

If you’ve been following the 1.20 update news, you might be wondering how to make a Minecraft bamboo farm. Thanks to the addition of bamboo planks, coming in 1.20, bamboo is set to become a cheap and easy source of wood. With plenty of players seeking to optimise their gathering techniques, a farm is often the best way to streamline the otherwise tedious process of getting all the resources you’ll need for a given project in-game.

Bamboo farms are going to become especially useful though. Previously, a good wood farm would require at least extensive knowledge of redstone mechanics. But bamboo farms are much simpler to build, and can be constructed in a modular fashion, allowing players to more easily create a farm of the perfect size for their needs. In addition to being the freshest new source of wood though, bamboo is also a critical component in other crafting recipes, like scaffolding – a popular block that makes awkward or challenging builds much easier to manage.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to make a Minecraft bamboo farm, and outline all of the advantages that come along with operating one in your worlds. If you’re also looking for things to get on with once your bamboo farm is up and running, have a look at our run-through of the Minecraft armour trim system or the Minecraft archeology system also coming in 1.20.

How to build a Minecraft bamboo farm

First, you’re going to need to pick up all the blocks and materials necessary for the construction of a bamboo farm. It’s a short but important list. To build a bamboo farm, you’ll need the following blocks:

• Bamboo
• Three pieces of cobblestone
• An observer
• Redstone dust
• A piston

You can swap out cobblestone for a block of your choosing of course – we just picked it because it’s easy to get your hands on. If you don’t have any bamboo, you’ll need to go exploring and locate a bamboo forest or a jungle biome, where the stuff grows prolifically.

How to craft an observer in Minecraft

If you’re not big on redstone, you might be wondering how to craft an observer. To do this, you’ll need six pieces of cobblestone, one piece of quartz, and two pieces of redstone dust. Place the cobblestone along the top and bottom rows of the crafting table, the quartz on the left side of the centre row, and the redstone dust in the two remaining spaces. We’ve got an image below to illustrate this.

How to craft a piston in Minecraft

You might also be wondering how to craft a piston. This one’s even simpler, and you’ll just need one piece of iron, one piece of redstone dust, three wooden planks, and four pieces of cobblestone. Place the three wooden planks across the top row of the crafting table. Then place the iron in the centre square, the redstone dust right below it, and fill the four remaining slots with cobblestone. Again, we’ve illustrated it below to help.

How to build a bamboo farm in Minecraft

Now that we’re all set up, it’s time to build. We’ll go through this step by step so that it’s easier to refer back to this guide as you go.

Step 1

First, find a spot with some grass blocks, or pre-build a space with some grass or dirt blocks in place. Remove any foliage nearby that might obstruct you, and then plant your bamboo sapling on the ground. Bamboo is a versatile plant, and it’ll grow nearby or away from water, on grass blocks, sand blocks, dirt blocks, or even podzol blocks.

Step 2

Behind your bamboo block, place your first cobblestone block, and on top of this, place your piston, making sure that the extending face is looking towards your bamboo.

Step 3

Next, you’ll want to place your observer above the piston. This is a little trickier as you need to make sure the ‘observing’ face that’ll detect any changes or inputs in front of it is facing towards the bamboo. When the shoot grows up to the height of the observer, the new bamboo piece will trigger the observer and activate the circuit. The easiest way is to place your second two cobblestone blocks on top of the bamboo, go behind your build, and place the observer against the highest cobblestone block it’ll now be facing. Or, you can tower up behind the build using the blocks, then place the observer on top of the piston looking toward the direction of the bamboo shoot. Once it’s oriented correctly, you can remove the two extra cobblestone blocks.

Step 4

Finally, place one of those blocks again, this time directly behind the piston, and put your redstone dust on top of it. This will link the observer and the piston. Now, whenever your bamboo shoot grows from two to three blocks high, the observer will detect it, activating the piston, and automatically breaking the bamboo for you to collect.

Step 5

This is a highly modular design, and you can build your tower taller or shorter if you like. You can also separate the distance between the piston and observer, though this will extend the amount of redstone wiring required. Most importantly, you can build multiple of these machines close together to increase your farm’s output.

If you’ve got lots of space and still aren’t too confident with redstone, we’d suggest that you build each of these modules one block apart from each other. This will prevent the redstone at the back from linking, which will cause all pistons to fire whenever any of the shoots in your line trigger an observer – a massively inefficient method of farming.

If you are confident with redstone, you can alternatively utilise a more complex wiring system, or even shulk sensors, to wire your modules. You can automate the design to collect the bamboo too, or even replace this design altogether with a flying machine that will automatically go back and forth across a given area, allowing for a the most dense and efficient style of bamboo farm. While we’ll happily provide guides for these in the future, we’ve kept this introductory guide simple for now.

That’s everything you’ll need to know on how to build a Minecraft bamboo farm. With this knowledge in hand, you should find it much easier to gather large quantities of bamboo for little effort. If you’re looking for some more advice to keep up to date with the changes coming in 1.20, like a walkthrough of the Minecraft sniffer, a Minecraft camels guide, or even just a quick outline of the new Minecraft brush tool, be sure to check in with us ahead of the 1.20 launch.

How do I make an observer in Minecraft?

Place three wooden planks across the top row of the crafting table. Then place an iron ingot in the centre square, redstone dust right below it, and fill the four remaining slots with cobblestone.

How do I make a piston in Minecraft?

Place three cobblestone along the top row and and three along the bottom row of the crafting table, a piece of quartz on the left side of the centre row, and redstone dust in the two remaining spaces.