NETHER WART

Every other plant in this group is something a villager sells to you. Nether wart runs the other way: it grows on soul sand without needing any light at all, which makes it the one crop that thrives stacked in a dark nether farm, and a Cleric at master buys it off you at 1 emerald for every 22 handed over.

9 nether wart also compacts into 1 nether wart block on a crafting grid, a solid building block for anyone stockpiling more than a single villager's slot can take. Since it grows without sunlight and multiplies fast under soul sand, a farm feeding this trade is one of the more reliable emerald sources once it is set up.

One profession takes it. Bring nether wart to a Cleric once he reaches master, and he pays 1 emerald for every 22 units handed over, the same rate no matter which cleric you ask.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 22 nether wart, from the Cleric, and 4 of the other 5 pay out faster. No villager sells nether wart back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Cleric takes 22 nether wart a trade, 12 trades, 12 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

12 acacia boats against 360 flint for the same 12 emeralds, 30 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 7.5 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Nether Wart itself pays 22 an emerald, so 60 of the 72 ask less and 10 ask more.

Place a brewing stand next to an unemployed villager and he becomes a cleric, though this offer sits at master, the last tier on his sheet. He needs to trade his way up through every earlier level before nether wart shows up at all.

Once it does, the slot buys 12 loads before it locks, and a restock brings the same rate back rather than a fresh roll, so a cleric who buys nether wart keeps buying it every time the offer refills.

12 sales close the slot, and the cleric needs 2 real minutes before he can refill it. A Minecraft day runs 20 real minutes, long enough for two of those refills to land while a farm keeps running.

One cleric absorbs 528 nether wart across a full day for 24 emeralds, which is why an automated soul sand farm feeding a bank of clerics is a standard emerald setup rather than a novelty.

Soul sand does not need to be lit or tilled the way farmland does, so a nether wart farm can run stacked in total darkness. That makes it one of the few crops that scales cleanly inside a compact, enclosed build.

Where they go back: that Cleric also sells redstone dust, 2 for 1 emerald, its cheapest offer.

Also on the Cleric's list: bottle o' enchanting, rotten flesh, gold ingot, lapis lazuli, rabbit foot, and glowstone, the rest of what one brewing stand can put on offer.

Nether wart is the first ingredient in almost every potion worth making: it turns a bottle of water into the awkward potion everything else builds on. Without it a brewing stand can only make a handful of useless mixtures.

It grows on soul sand and nowhere else, which is why the standard farm is a room of soul sand carried back from the Nether. It needs no light and no water, it never dies, and a harvest replants itself from the same crop, so one trip supplies a base forever.

Nether wart only grows on soul sand, and soul sand works anywhere: a strip of it in a basement grows wart exactly as well as a fortress does. Light makes no difference at all, which no other crop can say.

It does not need water, cannot be sped up with bone meal, and gives several back per harvest, so one purchase is a permanent farm as soon as you have the soul sand to plant it in.

The other use is the block: nine wart make a nether wart block, which is a red building material and the base of the red mushroom-shaped growths in a crimson forest.

Nether Wart grows on soul sand in any dimension, so the farm can sit in the overworld right beside the Cleric's brewing stand. At Master the Cleric buys 22 Nether Wart per emerald, 264 per restock, and How to Build a Nether Wart Farm in Minecraft shows the build.