Disappearing Crops

[Peter Berry]

I have a small holding with lots of crops surrounded by a fence and all is ok, the Hares cannot get through.

I am in the process of building a new home in another part of the map, the walls are four blocks high so nothing can get in, I have crops growing but when I leave the home and come back the crops have gone and only a few seed bags are left. If I plant the seeds once the seedlings appear the same thing happens again. 

[redram]

This happens while you're watching?   Or while you're gone?   It sure seems like hares.  Even though you have the walls, I wonder if it's possibly you unluckily built your garden where a hare 'spawner' exists?  I know something like that exists for wolves.   I once took over  a tower ruin for my house, only to repeatedly find it full of wolves when I came back from trips.  Apparently it had a wolf spawner inside the tower.   Might try moving the garden a chunk away and see if same thing still happens?

[Peter Berry]

Hi Redram. thanks for the reply, it always happens when I am gone. I have tried a few times since the initial post and it still happens on my return. I shall rearrange the walls and see what happens.

[Saraty]

@Peter Berry
Most likely hares, because they spawn on grass blocks (which you have right besides your garden).

[Tyron]

@Saraty
Correction: They don't actually test the block they are on, but which ones they would be in. Currently they can spawn inside air, tall grass and snow. I'll make it so that they only spawn inside tallgrass and snow. Until the next release @Peter Berry, make your your farm is enclosed so no animal can get in and keep it decently lit. They will not spawn if there is significant block light. Other than hares there should be nothing else that would cause your plants to pop off. 

[Peter Berry]

Thanks for the replies, I moved the building to a new site and I have not had a problem. 

[Corax]

Does ambient temperature play a role in crop growth?

I just now had an entire field of freshly planted rice disappear in a fresh 1.9.12 world. I had some more seeds, so I replanted and went away for other tasks. When I returned, one of the planted plots no longer had rice on it, but instead a seed bag. In retrospect I'm fairly certain that's what happened with the first batch, only I didn't notice in time, and so the seeds despawned.

The area I'm in has lots of clay and peat, sparse birch trees, and generally appears to be quite cold–there are a few snow patches on some of the hills, which aren't anything bigger than mounds of maybe ten or twenty metres tall.

[Tyron]

Currently temperature should not play a role, no. If the crop is gone but a seed bag on the ground, its quite likely that a hare visited your crops.

[Corax]

Thanks for getting back on this, you're probably right – I found a few of the buggers, I just didn't think they were that devastating at first. Time for some rabbit stew.