Updated 23 October 2026. Facts on this page come from minecraft.wiki, minecraft.net and the live Artemis PvP server; sources are listed at the bottom.
Bone Meal and Composters: Grow Crops Instantly
Bone meal makes crops, saplings and most plants grow instantly when used on them, by hand or from a dispenser. Craft 3 from a bone or 9 from a bone block, or make it in a composter from plant waste: cake and pumpkin pie always add a layer, seeds and leaves only 30% of the time, and a full composter gives one bone meal.
How do you get bone meal?
- Craft it: 1 bone makes 3 bone meal, and a bone block makes 9. Skeletons drop bones.
- Compost it: fill a composter with plant items and use it once full to get 1 bone meal.
- Hoppers can feed a composter from above and pull bone meal out from below; see hoppers.
What does bone meal do?
- Grows crops such as wheat, carrots, potatoes and pumpkin stems by 2-5 stages per use, and gives saplings a 45% chance to grow a stage; see crop farming.
- On a grass block it sprouts grass and flowers around it.
- On a tall flower (rose bush, sunflower, lilac, peony) it drops a copy: the only way to get more of them.
- On nylium it grows Nether roots and fungi; on sea pickles on coral it spreads more.
- It does nothing to cactus, vines, Nether wart or chorus plants, and on Java it does not grow sugar cane.
Which items compost best?
| Chance per item | Examples | Items to fill (average) |
|---|---|---|
| 30% | Seeds, leaves, saplings, kelp, sweet and glow berries, short grass | 21 |
| 50% | Cactus, melon slices, sugar cane, vines, tall grass | 13 |
| 65% | Apples, carrots, potatoes, wheat, pumpkins, melons, flowers, mushrooms | 10.2 |
| 85% | Baked potatoes, bread, cookies, hay bales | 8.1 |
| 100% | Cake, pumpkin pie | 7 |
Meat, fish, bones, bamboo, dead bushes and poisonous potatoes cannot be composted.
What else is a composter for?
It is the farmer's job site block, so placing one near an unemployed villager can turn it into a farmer, and a comparator reads its fill level as a signal from 0 to 8. See villager jobs.
Does ArtemisPvP have custom blocks?
Frequently asked questions
How much bone meal does one bone make?
3, and a bone block makes 9.
What is the best item to compost?
Cake and pumpkin pie always add a layer, so 7 fill a composter.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these pages; the wording is ours.