Different growth stages of Nether wart in Minecraft

Nether wart is one of the most important items in Minecraft. Without it, there would be almost no brewing and potions would not be part of the game. This means valuable effects like Fire Resistance, Slow Falling, Water Breathing, Instant Healing and so much more would be incredibly difficult to obtain.

Nether wart can be farmed, though it's difficult to get and start a farm with it since this resource only spawns in Nether fortresses. Once players have it, they can grow it in the Overworld, which makes it a pretty easy item to get in bulk.

However, the growth rate is random. Sometimes it takes a long while for it to fully grow. Often, Nether warts planted at the same time will not grow at the same rate. Here's why that is.

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Minecraft: Nether wart growth explained

In general, there are four different growth stages for Nether wart. This is similar to beetroot, which also has four stages. It is unlike the other three crops, wheat, potatoes and carrots, that actually have eight stages. This is why it always seems like beetroot grows much faster. It grows in half the amount of time.

For Nether wart, there are four stages, but they're also somewhat random. With each random tick (which is essentially the unit of time in Minecraft), Nether wart has a 10% chance of increasing one stage (from zero to three).

Different stages (Image via Mojang)

According to the Minecraft Wiki, it's even more random than this:

"At default random tick speed, each nether wart grows one age step approximately every 13653 game ticks (11.3775 minutes) on average, and fully grows from planting to harvest every 40960 game ticks (34.133333333333 minutes) on average. The growth rate is not affected by light or any other environmental factors."

Essentially, the average time it takes for Nether wart to grow is 34 real-life minutes, which is multiple Minecraft days. It can take less time, but the opposite is also a possibility.

Unfortunately, bone meal can't change this. Bone meal is often used to speed up the growth process for things like saplings, crops and flowers. Nether wart is immune to that, though.

This doesn't remove the ability to harvest it, though. If players desperately need Nether wart, breaking it prematurely doesn't eliminate the drop. Waiting to break a fully grown Nether wart gives two to four items, while an immature one drops just one.

Looting increases the amount dropped by one per level, with a potential maximum of seven Nether warts coming from a fully grown plant when using a Looting III pickaxe.

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