What do mushrooms grow on in minecraft

Mushrooms are a plant that can be found above and below ground in the world of Minecraft. They’re useful as a food item for making Stew or Rabbit Stew, but did you know there’s more to them than that?

The Suspicious Stew that can be made with Mushrooms can have plenty of benefits and Mushrooms are one of the many components in Potion brewing.

But it isn’t always easy finding Mushrooms on the surface. Luckily for us, just like most other foodstuffs, it is possible to grow your own! In this guide, I’m going to show you how to make a Mushroom farm in Minecraft.

Where to Find Mushrooms in Minecraft

It is important to note there are two distinct types of Mushrooms in Minecraft. Normal sized and huge variants. How to find and grow either of these variants differs. Both types can be divided into Red and Brown Mushrooms, which can be used equally.

Regular Mushrooms

Unlike most other plant items, normal-sized Mushrooms are relatively sensitive to light. They are more likely to grow in darker places, or right in the pitch black darkness of caves.

Most commonly they can be found in the Swamp, Old Growth Taiga, or Mushroom Field biomes above ground. Scarcely they can be found on patches of Dirt within caves. 

The Nether is another dark place where Mushrooms prefer to grow and do so in much larger numbers.

To harvest regular Mushrooms is relatively easy. Hitting them with your hand or any tool will break the mushroom and allow you to harvest it. Alternatively, if the block under the Mushroom is broken or Water flows over it, the Mushroom will drop and be ready for picking.

Huge Mushrooms

Huge Mushrooms are very easy to spot. They are about the size of regular Trees in the game, standing at a minimum of 5 blocks to a maximum of 7 blocks tall.

Huge Mushrooms can only be found above ground, in Mushroom Fields or Dark Forests, with the edition of Swamps in Bedrock Edition.

Each piece of a Huge Mushroom’s canopy is a Mushroom Block which can be broken using just your hand or any other tool at your disposal. Keep in mind that the stems of the Mushrooms will not give anything.

Only their parasols drop Mushrooms when broken. Red Huge Mushroom parasols will drop Red Mushrooms and Brown Huge Mushroom parasols will drop Brown Mushrooms.

How to Farm Mushrooms in Minecraft

The Mushrooms you have collected can be grown on your farm in two different ways. You can grow them in their small or huge variants. 

Since they are so different in the ways they grow and the space they take up, you can have two entirely different farms. Each one has its benefits and you can pick whatever works best for you and your world.

Farming Small Mushrooms

Mushrooms can be planted on any surface, as long as it isn’t well lit. They can only grow and spread on blocks that are a light level of 12 or less.

This means a field directly in the sun is not your best option for making your Mushroom farm.

The best way to make a Mushroom farm is to make it somewhere that is poor lit. This means a cave or even inside a building and this can actually pose some risks.

If the area is pitch black or not light enough Mobs will start spawning. If you make the area too bright, then you can’t plant the Mushrooms. This means something like a Torch or Glowstone is too bright.

Now, there’s a few ways to get around this.

If you’re early in the game and don’t have many resources yet, your best bet is to use Torches, but plant your Mushrooms farther away from them. 2 blocks from a Torch should be just enough for you to plant the Mushrooms.

An alternative to Torches can eventually be Soul Torches. Because their base light level is 10, it means you can fill a whole room with them, without obstructing the Mushrooms. 

Additionally, you can also build your farm only one block high. This may sound a bit tricky to harvest the Mushrooms later on, but you can easily use Water to do so. Simply put down a Bucket of Water and its spread will knock the Mushrooms right back to you.  

The Farm can be as small or as big as you like it and, as long as it is dark enough, it can be as decorated as you want it.

Farming Huge Mushrooms

Huge Mushrooms work a little differently than small Mushrooms. They are safer to farm and a much faster way to get Mushrooms at the price of Bone Meal.

Mushrooms can be placed on virtually any block as long as the light level is 12 or lower. With this mechanic, small Mushrooms will also spread to any other block if they can.

With Huge Mushrooms this is a little different. A Huge Mushroom can only grow if the small Mushroom was planted on Dirt, Coarse Dirt, Rooted Dirt, Grass Blocks, Moss Blocks or Podzol. Even though you can plant a small Mushroom on wood, a Huge variant won’t be able to grow from it.

Before you place your Mushroom, make sure that there is enough space to grow the Huge Mushroom.

Huge Mushrooms can grow anywhere between 5 to 7 blocks tall, provided that there is one block of empty space above them. So if you’re making your farm indoors, make sure that it’s at least 9 blocks or taller.

Usually I do this outside and by marking the area like in the picture above. On the left is the area that a Red Huge Mushroom would take up and on the right is the area that the Brown Mushroom would take up.

I’m using Podzol to mark the area and because I can plant the Mushrooms on it during the day.

For Brown Huge Mushrooms, each Mushroom will need at least 9x9x9 space to grow in, because their canopy spreads in a square of 7×7.

For Red Huge Mushrooms you will need a space that is 9 blocks tall or taller, but their canopies are a bit smaller. So, an area of 5x5x9 would be enough for Red Mushrooms.

Light Levels

I will keep this bit relatively short, because a block’s light level is fairly easy to understand!

Light level is simply the strength of light on a block and how far light spreads from a certain lightsource. For example, a Torch has a light level of 14, which means that its light spreads for 14 blocks in each direction, growing weaker with each block. 

Blocks like Glowstone or Fire and Lava have a light level of 15. This means they’re brighter and their light spreads further along the axis.

Additionally, each diagonal block from the light source is two light levels weaker as opposed to one.

In the image above I’ve placed down blocks from bright to dark to show both the range and difference in light levels between a regular Torch and a Soul Torch.

The diamond shape surrounding the normal Torch represents the very edge of where a Torch’s light reaches.