Early-game mushroom farming?

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GreenComet
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Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by GreenComet »

I started playing BTW again a few weeks ago after a long absence, and just found my first village (wheat and potatoes!)

Before the village, I found 2 brown mushrooms. (They were together on a small ledge and might not have been able to spread any further.) I didn't really try to farm them, because it seemed like it would be way too much effort to even get a reasonable number of seed mushrooms, and they're tough to farm without pistons.

Has anyone had success farming brown mushrooms in the early game since the update that made them require complete darkness? How did you set up your farm?
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jackatthekilns
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by jackatthekilns »

A brown mushroom farm is always going to be a little tedious but it isn't that bad. It just takes a lot of space. I personally tend to get cows and milk for scrambled eggs as my early food, but the seed that I play on has a lot of iron early on so your mileage may vary.

For me, the key to a mushroom farm is using slabs to prevent mob spawns in the dark. I set up 3x3 areas with only 1 air block between the floor and ceiling and then put a path of slabs in between all of them. pre-lightblocks you just have to go in and place a few torches and then pick them up when you leave. I think I have seen other designs on the forum so you may have a better idea. Given enough space and some time, you can have a pretty decent growth rate. You may not want to do this early game, but you will need a reliable source of brown mushrooms for trading.
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Dorugami
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Dorugami »

To be honest, I've never relied on any food source that required shrooms early game, and apart from storing a few for the eventual mycelium field, I just use them as soon as I can. Maintaining an efficient (in terms of cost effectiveness) brown mushroom farm pre mycelium is...tedious without iron tools. I'd rather spend whatever sparse food I have getting sustainable vittles as quickly as possible through chickens.
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GreenComet
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by GreenComet »

jackatthekilns wrote: but you will need a reliable source of brown mushrooms for trading.
Good to know.

Before I posted this, I dug a 7*7*2 darkroom that can be lit from outside by breaking a particular block in the floor (without spilling mobs). I'll probably switch to slabs, because with this design I still have to fight mobs when I go in to check for mushrooms.
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Dorugami
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Dorugami »

I thought a bit about the issue at hand, since I noticed the mushroom trade was lower than mycelium (go figure) so I dug up my pre-stumps world where I had a no mycelium farm for them. The design is basically 11x3 raised platforms in a 2 block high room that was repeated as necessary. It was extremely slow as far as I remember making it, as I was using stone pick-axes to do it, which constituted the majority of my night-time activities. I recreated the setup in a creative world to illustrate.

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You'll notice the walkways are glass, so no mobs can spawn on it, and since the growing platforms are raised, no mobs can spawn there either. I made the platforms out of dirt in my survival world as I found the mushrooms tended to get stuck in the middle, so I used something that I could easily dig away. When I needed to harvest I just stuck torches in notches I dug above the walkway, you'll only need enough light to see anyway. To keep the room dark I just stuffed the entrance with gravel - I mean I could have used sand or dirt, but I really needed the flint.

Pros:
100% Safe from Mobs
1-2 Mushroom turnout per platform per day cycle

Cons:
Manual Lighting
You'll have trouble reaching your harvest sometimes
Extremely slow going (as are most things early game)

Good luck on making your own.
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Gilberreke
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Gilberreke »

I think your seed mushrooms are too close together. You have to remember the X mushrooms in a certain area rule. There's tons of designs for mushroom farms online though. The only issue is adapting them for use in complete darkness, which is usually not that hard.
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Dorugami
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Dorugami »

What exactly was enough space between the shrooms though? Was it three? I suppose the platforms could be a little longer, but I'm past that tech level now :) Should be useful for comet though.
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DiamondArms
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by DiamondArms »

Mushroom Farms in My SSP

I use these slab-based farms to grow mushrooms. all run on a single seed mushroom in the middle. There are 5-6 of them in my underground farming terrace. I call them Pillboxes (since they resemble pillboxes when made with a roof). Most of them are on different floors.
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kazerima
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by kazerima »

DiamondArms wrote:Mushroom Farms in My SSP

I use these slab-based farms to grow mushrooms. all run on a single seed mushroom in the middle. There are 5-6 of them in my underground farming terrace. I call them Pillboxes (since they resemble pillboxes when made with a roof). Most of them are on different floors.
That's honestly pretty impressive, I never thought to use the light-blocking capabilities of upside-down slabs to leave mushrooms growable yet visible enough to harvest.
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Dorugami
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Dorugami »

Ditto on DA's design, that is ingenious. Although it feels a bit cheaty, you definitely can't argue with results like that. What's the turnout on those things btw?
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DiamondArms
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by DiamondArms »

Not all that fast, hence the need for several. If you need a lot of mushrooms, these are pretty cheap to build and can be placed practically anywhere.
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Foxy Boxes
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by Foxy Boxes »

Personally I use a variant of the ol' "Stick 'em in your tunnrls" approach.

My tunnels are 3 high and 2 wide, but then I remove the blocks either side on the floor, before covering the floor in half-slabs. Voila, pitch darkness, perfect for growing shrooms.
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DiamondArms
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by DiamondArms »

Foxy Boxes wrote:Personally I use a variant of the ol' "Stick 'em in your tunnrls" approach.

My tunnels are 3 high and 2 wide, but then I remove the blocks either side on the floor, before covering the floor in half-slabs. Voila, pitch darkness, perfect for growing shrooms.
I experimented with a similar design (1x5 cells) but the speed was too slow to be of any real use. might have something to do with the lack of spaces to grow to.
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dawnraider
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by dawnraider »

Mushrooms won't grow if there's too many of them in a small area. Your problem may have been you were close to hitting the cap so few could grow.
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DiamondArms
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by DiamondArms »

the 1x5 cells were 6 blocks apart. I had the same idea to fit them in the walls of my tunnels.
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dawnraider
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by dawnraider »

Ah, yeah, then that wouldn't have been the problem. Mushrooms unfortunately do grow incredibly slowly, so you need pretty massive farms as well to get good output.
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DiamondArms
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by DiamondArms »

no kidding. I went from 2-3 1x5 cells to 6 pillboxes. the pillboxes still take a while, but are generally faster than the 1x5's. I've moved on to large mushroom arboretums for more yield, but that's later game if you don't find a mushroom Island near spawn.

I've also experimented with a piston floodgate and cauldron for semi-early autofarming that uses several floors of 2 1x4 rows for flushing side by side with a seed mushroom in the middle. its also godawful slow, but at least its automatic and can be done if you luck out on a piston somewhere. I built this one after finding villages, so I think the piston came from a jungle temple, but pretty sure its doable without super extensive nether travel.
LannyRipple
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Re: Early-game mushroom farming?

Post by LannyRipple »

I had built an old-style mushroom farm for reds to gather mats for Hardcore Stumps. Basically tiled 5x5 areas with torch centered in the ceiling and packed earth under the mother-shroom so I knew not to pick it.

At some point we found brown mushrooms so I took half the room and put dirt blocks at face high and then a dirt border to block light (I think that put 24 5x5s to brown mushroom use). To harvest wait a good while and then just dig out the dirt. Start with (and fill back in last) the rows that have light so there are no nasty surprises.

Not really useful as a food source but provides stacks of mushrooms for trade without having to do anything high tech. You'll be happy when you get that Unbreaking III/Efficiency III diamond shovel though.

I've been thinking of a huge room with redstone lamps in the floor. Flip off the lamps to grow. Flip on and break out a single row of dirt to gun down any spawned mobs before harvesting.
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