Bone Meal

Overview

Bone Meal is instant growth. Used on wheat, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, melon and pumpkin stems, saplings, bamboo, sugar cane, kelp, sea pickles, flowers, grass, moss and coral, it pushes the plant forward one or more growth stages — usually taking two to five applications to bring a crop to harvest. That makes it the difference between a farm you wait for and a farm you harvest on demand, and it is why a composter is one of the first blocks a serious farmer builds: seeds, saplings, rotten vegetables and excess crops go in, and seven successful fills produce one bone meal, so the farm fertilises itself. On grass blocks it grows tall grass and flowers, which is the standard way to farm flowers for dye, and on moss it spreads the moss for lush cave builds. It is also the white dye in the game. Three bone meal come from one bone, so a night's worth of skeletons is a season's worth of fertiliser. It is the item that makes farming feel responsive instead of patient. Keep a stack in the farm chest at all times.

Forcing crops, saplings and plants to grow instantly, farming flowers from grass blocks for dye, spreading moss for builds, and acting as the game's white dye.

In Minecraft, Bone Meal is a dye item. A full stack holds 64. It drops from Cod, Pufferfish, Salmon, and Tropical Fish.

You make it with Bone. The one thing it makes is White Dye.

How to get it

Craft 3 from 1 Bone, or produce it in a composter — 8 successful fills yield 1 bone meal, which makes surplus seeds and saplings a renewable fertiliser supply.

Tips

A composter turns excess seeds and saplings into bone meal, which makes a farm self-fertilising.
Bone meal on a grass block grows flowers matching the biome — the fastest way to farm a specific dye colour.
Saplings usually need several applications, and a tree will not grow if there is no space above it.
Bone meal is white dye, so it colours wool, glass, concrete and beds without any additional recipe.