Minecraft Forums

Hey everyone. New to the forums and have a few things to talk about. This topic however is Jungle Tree Saplings.

Now, before I start, I want to say my data is from the last snapshot of 1.2, not 1.2 itself, so I don't know if any of it has changed.

I was playing the game and looking for jungle trees. I knew they now had saplings and was very excited to start farming them. I broke a bunch of their leaves, no saplings. I kept going at it and eventually got one. I worked away for 10-20 minutes and got 9 saplings. I went back to my home, far from the jungle, certain that I would have enough to start breeding jungle trees as a renewable resource. Much to my dismay, of the single large jungle tree and 5 normal sized jungle trees I grew, I wasn't even able to return to my original 9 saplings! I had dropped to 6. I kept going, thinking I just had terribly bad luck, but found after several attempts that the saplings just weren't spawning. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. I thought maybe I was unlucky. I opened a new save and spawned in a jungle where I then proceeded to to a survey of 1000 broken jungle leaves. I got 27 saplings. That's pretty skimpy!!

So my question is, are any of you finding this to be the case in the official release of the update and if so, do you think it is annoying? Personally I'd like to be able to breed jungle trees on my server; my friends and I like to keep it vanilla survival and it seems a great hassle just to get a few of these trees. But maybe I'm overlooking something. Maybe they need to be non-renewable. I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

Step 1: check the Wiki
A tall jungle tree can be grown with 4 saplings in a square and bonemeal used on them. However, I agree that the saplings are a bit rare.

I've been on the wiki (I read it allll the time =P); I'm aware of how to grow the tall trees. My problem is with getting more saplings.

I've noticed that I usually get more drops from any kind of tree if I cut it down and let the leaves decay naturally, have you tried that?

Sorry, I misread your post.
I started to notice that I get more by letting them decay, and it seems that every time you replant a tree, it drops more, like on a survival island, you start with 1 saplings, and from that one you get 2, from that 3-4 etc

Interesting; I'll try natural decay. Would you suggest the large trees or the small ones?

The first time I spawned in 1.2 I spawned in a jungle. I built my house and decided to gather the new jungle wood and almost immedately saw that I didn't get ANY saplings at all. So yes it sucks. Also you only need 1 sapling to create the big trees, you just need 3 other tree's saplings. Just use bone meal on the jungle sapling. You don't need 4.

Ooohh; that makes sense. That should make gathering Jungle Saplings much easier. Thanks man!

Quote from 225bob

you only need 1 sapling to create the big trees, you just need 3 other tree's saplings. Just use bone meal on the jungle sapling. You don't need 4.

you mean 1 jungle wood sapling next to 3 saplings of different trees will still produce a giant jungle tree?

edit; yep, sure does.


I noticed something else as well. wasted 2 stacks of bonedust to try this and it did not work at first, as I tried, a sheep ate a piece of grass right next to the saplings and what happened?? the non-jungle saplings changed into jungle saplings! so I moved away and tried it again, this time I broke a tall grass next to the saplings and it happened again. when I tried it without adding the bonedust, nothing happened. so I set up another spot and this time the bonedust made a jungle giant! 1 jungle sap and 3 oak is what I used.

so it seems if the bone dust doesnt work the first time, make the near blocks update and youll have achance of getting more junglesaps from it.

Quote from GSR

you mean 1 jungle wood sapling next to 3 saplings of different trees will still produce a giant jungle tree?

That's news to me. Either a great tip or an awesome troll attempt.

Quote from rodabon

That's news to me. Either a great tip or an awesome troll attempt.

it does work, although not consistantly. like I said, if the bone meal dont work at first, try to update the block next to the sapling group and it seems to convert non-jungle saplings into jungle ones. only seems to work if bone dust doesnt take.

but yeah, as long as one sapling in the 4 is a jungle one, then it can have a chance of making a giant.

I had this same problem. Went a considerable distance in my 1.1-created world to find a jungle. It took me a long time chopping down trees and leaves to get 7 saplings to drop. I brought the saplings back to my house and planted one large tree and three normal ones. Harvested all the normal sized trees and didn't get a single sapling! Went all the way back to the jungle biome and got four more saplings. Planted four more trees. Harvested all of them and only got ONE sapling! I don't know what the deal is, but rate of sapling drop from jungle trees seems to be quite low compared to other species.

think the wiki page on saplings needs an update. says saplings have a 1/20 chance of dropping from leaf blocks. I'm sure that pine and birch are more rare than oak but not as rare as jungle. oak saplings are like sand grains on a beach.

I like that there are different raritys (spelling?) per species, but jungle saps need a bit of an increase maybe.

Agreed. Even with the ability to create big trees out of single saplings, it's such a huge hassle just to get any saplings. I think in my experience it's more annoying than "challenging" if that's what it was supposed to be, since I can't think of any reason why I'd want to spend forever just trying to breed trees (not like jungle trees have many actual useful applications, they're just cool). For that reason, unlike, say, diamonds, which are super useful, I don't think jungle tree saplings should be so hard to find. But I'm glad I've got some backup here, it seems rather-- strange. I agree also that oak tree saplings SEEM more common than other saplings, but I'm really not certain about that...

They need to be rare or this will be a giant catostrophic griefing tool, easy to get your hands on and destructive when placed everywhere.

after a couple more tries, I figured this;

we know that jungle giants cannot have any thing next to the saplings in order to grow because the giants spawn with vines that need those blocks to be free.

you can grow a giant with just 1 sapling of jungle and 3 of any other.

bonus/glitch; if anything is occupying a block next to the saplings and you take 1 try with bonedust, it will fail to grow but once you clear whatever is the space the non-jungle saps will convert to the jungle variety. just break 3 and replace with more non-jungle saps and place a block next to them, repeat to get extra jungle saplings at cost of bone meal and what ever saps you used.


edit;

make sure you place the block you use to obscure the growth is placed next to a non-jungle sap. if placed next to the jungle one it will let it grow. it seem to make it into the larger of the giants.

Cool! Thanks guys. Glad for all of the feedback and chat. Really is an interesting conundrum. I wonder if that jungle saps on the ground thing is the only way to gather them quickly? I find that with other trees I can breed them to reproduce the saplings in very little time; haven't yet tried doing this with big jungle trees but I imagine since there is so much tree to cut that it's a much slower process.

I personally stick to birch trees for a renewable resource of wood. They never grow high enough for me having to build up to reach the tip of them and you always get extra saplings.

Quote from 225bob

The first time I spawned in 1.2 I spawned in a jungle. I built my house and decided to gather the new jungle wood and almost immedately saw that I didn't get ANY saplings at all. So yes it sucks. Also you only need 1 sapling to create the big trees, you just need 3 other tree's saplings. Just use bone meal on the jungle sapling. You don't need 4.

That's a great tip - just tested, and it works! Three common saplings + one jungle sapling + one bone meal on jungle sapling = giant jungle tree.

EDIT : I cut down that tree, and let the leaves decay, it gave 12 saplings! From using one jungle sapling and 3 regular. Nice payoff!

I've made a 4x2 jungle mega tree farm, and so far it beats out all other types of tree farms for lumber, but not for apples (none) and saplings (only a 50% extra over materials needed to replant). Here's a picture of the 8 mega trees I cut down and replant:


The 2 large and 1 small jungle trees on the right edge of the picture aren't part of the farm, I leave those.
I cut down all 8 of the large 4x2 group of trees (8 mega jungle trees total), and on average I end up with between 40 and 64 saplings.
It's 4 saplings to replant each of the 8 trees, so 32 total. I don't use the 1 jungle plus 3 other system, since then you need bonemeal too and I prefer natural growth, and given how quickly they grow on their own it's not an issue timewise.
That leaves me with enough saplings for 3-8 new trees usually.

I will say that I still find that's not enough. With birch trees I usually get so many saplings that I'll be able to replant many times more than I cut down, so that making new forests is much easier.

For instance, I've been trying to make a group of jungle mega trees reach the new sky limit, using my 4x2 tree farm as a source of saplings to keep growing the trees on top of the others, as in this picture:


But often I'll only get enough for 3 or 4 new mega trees, meaning I have to clear my entire tree farm again just to add 1/4 of a level. Really slow going work.

On the plus side, I've gotten so much lumber I filled a double chest full of lumber and am now working on filling another one heh.