Latest Minecraft Bedrock Update Disrupts Popular Farming Mechanic

Farms in Minecraft enable players to produce specific items without the need for repetitive grinding. The community has devised numerous creative strategies for creating mob farms and item farms, continuously enhancing their designs to boost efficiency. Many of these farms capitalize on minor bugs present in the game.

The kelp farm once operated thanks to such a bug, but recent updates in Minecraft beta and preview versions have rendered it ineffective. This article explores how the kelp farm has become obsolete and why a resolution might not be forthcoming.

Minecraft 1.21.30 Breaks the Kelp Farm

The latest Minecraft beta and preview breaks the kelp farm (Image via Mojang Studios)

For nearly four years, players have relied on a game mechanic to obtain unlimited kelp. To those unfamiliar, kelp may seem like a simple item lacking in rarity or utility. However, dried kelp serves as a valuable fuel and food source, which is why constructing a kelp farm proved to be a sensible choice.

Unfortunately, with the launch of the latest 1.21.30 beta and preview for the Bedrock Edition, this method is no longer viable. Minor adjustments to block behaviors have rendered the farm ineffective, primarily because it exploited a bug that was officially identified back in 2021.

This bug allowed for the manipulation of water from the server side without changes on the client side. Players simply had to place a slab and a sticky piston above it, ensuring a one-block gap, followed by waterlogging the slab before activating and deactivating the sticky piston.

In the recent Bedrock beta and preview, vertically retracting waterlogged blocks with pistons fails to produce “ghost water”on the client side. Consequently, the kelp farm can no longer function since there is no water available for kelp growth.

As it stands, this has entirely dismantled the kelp farm, and no workaround exists. Players who wish to continue utilizing it will need to avoid downloading the latest beta and preview updates, which will definitively fix this bug in future major updates.

On the other hand, players who have already transitioned to the new beta and preview can easily revert to older game versions by using the Minecraft Launcher‘s Installation tab to select a preferred version.

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