Here’s how to build an automatic sugarcane farm in Minecraft

Farming is one of the slower parts of Minecraft, but you can make the crops harvest themselves with some redstone and a little know-how.

Once you’ve found a suitable location for your automatic Minecraft farm, create two pillars six blocks high and three blocks apart from each other. Then, set up chests and a hopper near the base. You’ll want the chests facing away from the pillars with the hopper behind them.

The next step is to determine the length of your redstone-powered sugar farm. There’s no limit to how big it can get, but keep in mind that your Minecraft farm will constantly produce sugarcane while you’re out exploring.

Extend the base of the pillars parallel with the chests to your desired length. Replace every eighth block with a redstone block. These will power our automatic hopper minecarts later on. Cap off the end with a solid wall six blocks tall.

Cover both of the railings with powered minecart tracks and place a hopper minecart on each side. Get them moving to make sure your tracks are properly set up, and make adjustments if necessary. They should eternally bounce from one end of the track to the other. 

Place a row of dirt blocks above each rail. The sugarcane plants will grow on these. Create backings for each of the railings so the middle of the structure can’t be seen from the outside. This will prevent any precious sugarcane from falling out of the autofarm. Doublecheck to make sure you used hopper minecarts.

Next, create two trenches along the interior. Fill them with water to irrigate the plants. Sugarcane needs close proximity to water in order to grow, so make sure both sides have plenty of water available.

Cover the trenches with a three-block wide layer of cobblestone, then set pistons facing outwards along the railing. The piston should be two blocks above the dirt.

Fill in the row between the pistons with cobble and draw a line of redstone dust along the new trench. Then place observers above the piston facing outwards. When a sugarcane grows three blocks tall, the observers will activate the pistons and harvest it. Your auto Minecraft farm should look like this from above.

All that’s left now is to plant your sugarcane and wait for it to grow. Hostile and friendly mobs can sometimes wander into the machine and mess with it, so cover the exterior with blocks to prevent trespassing. Any material will work, but glass offers an attractive look and lets you more easily monitor the sugarcane farm for any malfunctions.