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In vanilla Minecraft you cannot plant an apple. Apples come from oak and dark oak leaves: break leaves from those trees, or let them decay, and an apple occasionally drops. Each eligible leaf block has roughly a 1-in-200 chance, so an apple farm is a tree farm you run for a long time, not a crop you harvest.
Why there is no apple tree to plant
Minecraft has no apple sapling and no separate apple-bearing crop. Mojang’s official article on leaves, written by Duncan Geere and published in 2017, states that about every 200th block of oak or dark oak leaves drops an apple. Mojang’s apple article from 2018 describes the same source. If you searched “Can you grow an apple tree in Minecraft?”, the practical answer is that the tree you grow is an oak or dark oak, and the apples come from its leaves.
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Step-by-step: building a leaf farm
- Get an oak or dark oak sapling. Saplings grow when planted on dirt, coarse dirt, podzol, grass, or farmland, and they need light level 8 and enough open space. The space requirement differs by tree type, so dark oak needs a 2×2 footprint of saplings and a clear area around it (Mojang’s sapling article, 2017 onward).
- Let the tree grow. Bone meal can speed growth, according to the Minecraft Wiki’s tree-farming tutorial.
- Break the leaves, or let them decay. Leaves more than four blocks away from any wood have a chance to decay on each game tick, which is how leaves drop apples without you touching them. Removing the trunk and waiting is the slower but hands-off option.
- Collect the apples. Apples drop as items where the leaf block was. Walk over them or use a hopper line to bring them to a chest.
A hoe speeds up breaking leaves, according to the same tutorial. Shears or a Silk Touch tool collect the leaf block itself instead of breaking it, and collected leaves do not drop apples. Keep leaves you want to store as blocks separate from the ones you break for fruit.
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How long a farm takes and what to expect
Mojang’s apple article estimates that a player would need to destroy about 12,000 oak leaf blocks on average to collect a full stack of apples, and notes that the Fortune enchantment can help. That is an average across many players, not a guarantee for your farm. Expect long, uneven runs of empty leaves.
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| Source | How apples are obtained | Predictability | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oak or dark oak leaves | About 1 in 200 eligible leaf blocks broken or decayed (Mojang, 2017) | Renewable but random | Slow; about 12,000 leaves for a full stack on average (Mojang, 2018) |
| Villager trades | Depends on the villager’s available trades | Depends on finding and trading with the right villager | Not stated in the sources reviewed |
| Village chests | Found in generated village loot | Depends on the village you find | Not stated in the sources reviewed |
| Dungeon exploration | Found as dungeon loot | Depends on the dungeon you find | Not stated in the sources reviewed |
Mojang lists villager trades, village chests, and dungeon exploration as alternatives to leaf farming (Mojang, 2017 and 2018 articles). The sources do not give drop rates for these alternatives, so the table does not compare their speed.
Common problems
- No apples after many leaves: the rate is random. The 1-in-200 figure is an average, so long dry streaks are normal.
- Leaves dropped saplings but no apples: saplings and apples are separate drops. Only eligible oak and dark oak leaves are named as apple sources.
- Trees not growing: check light level 8, the ground type, and whether there is enough open space for the tree shape.
- Apples from other leaf types: the official leaves article names only oak and dark oak. Do not plan a farm around other species.
Edition and version notes
The official articles cited here describe vanilla mechanics as of their 2017 and 2018 publication dates. The sources do not establish whether Java Edition and Bedrock Edition use identical drop rates, and they do not document later version changes. Modded gameplay can also differ. If a rate does not match the figures above, check the current Minecraft Wiki or Mojang’s own patch notes for your version before changing your farm.
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The apple mechanic requires no paid mods, tools, or accessories. Any guidebook or third-party product is optional and does not change how apples drop in the game.
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