How to grow trees faster in Minecraft

In Minecraft, survival always begins with trees because, without their ability to source wood for players, it can be challenging to get very far in the game.

Growing trees takes time, and there are no two ways about it. However, players may need the wood provided more urgently than the standard growth of a tree will allow. Fortunately, bone meal offers a quick and easy solution to speed the growth of trees and several different forms of plant life.

Acquired in a few different ways but primarily through breaking down dropped bones, bone meal is the matter that plants can't get enough of.

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Minecraft: Obtaining bone meal to fertilize saplings

Bone meal has many uses, including speeding crop and tree growth and creating grass and flowers (Image via Mojang)

Bone meals are obtained in Minecraft in a few ways, but most commonly, they are created by taking bones from defeated enemies such as skeletons and breaking them down into meals.

One bone will create three pieces of bone meal. There are additional ways to obtain bones as well, such as finding them in loot chests within generated structures, fishing them up from bodies of water, or as a loot drop from salmon, cod, pufferfish, or tropical fish in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition.

If Minecraft players would like to skip obtaining bones and go straight for bone meal, they can also create a composter, which can be fed plant matter and will eventually fill up and create bone meal.

If players have many unused crops or other miscellaneous plant matter lying around, such as flowers, fungi, or dried kelp, they can toss it into a composter that will reward them with one piece of bone meal when it is filled.

This isn't the most economical way to obtain bone meal, but it can be helpful when Minecraft's drop chances aren't in the player's favor or have a shortage of actual bones.

Once players have the bone meal they desire, they can head to where their tree saplings are planted and simply right-click or press the use button while holding bone meal on the sapling.

The sapling should emit green sparkling particles, indicating that the sapling has been fertilized and its growth has been sped up.

Bone meal can be used as many times as needed to speed a tree's growth until it grows into its full size. Minecraft gamers who stockpile their reserves of bone meal should have no problem growing tons of trees quickly, on top of crops and other plants that they're after.