Herbalism

Herbalism is a skill in McMMO that governs the ability to harvest plants and crops excluding trees and other more structural occurences of plants. It requires multiple tools to make the full use of its abilities.

Green Terra
Right-clicking empty farmland and breaking a plant or crop after Herbalism Level 50 activates the super move Green Terra. It increases in duration at certain levels. It has a cooldown of 240 seconds.

Effects while activated
Be mindful that all of the above can be configured by a server admin. Also, similarly to all other super moves in McMMO, if the hoe in use is unequipped, the skill will immediately stop and undergo the full cooldown.
 * High chance to triple all drops from harvested plants or crops, including seeds.
 * For farming, a potential to replant numerous seeds for free during the skill duration, saving time and seeds.
 * Consumes 1 wheat Seed to convert one of the following blocks:
 * Cobblestone into Mossy Cobblestone
 * Stone Brick into Mossy Stone Brick
 * Dirt into Grass

Green Thumb (Wheat/Carrots/Potatoes/Nether Wart/Beetroot)

 * Green Thumb has the ability to more rapidly progress the growth of all single-block crops. The skill curve roughly follows the equation based on this table:
 * level*(13.3%/200%)=chance
 * where level is your herbalism level and chance is the odds for instant growth to that stage.

Shroom Thumb
Using a mushroom on a block of dirt while both a red and brown mushroom are in the inventory triggers "Shroom Thumb". It consumes a red and brown mushroom, and has a chance to turn the block of dirt into a block of mycelium. The chances of success increases with Herbalism level.

Farmer's Diet
This passive skill increases the amount of hunger that grown food will restore as the player's Herbalism level increases. One hunger is half of a piece of meat on the hunger bar.

Note: Farmer's Diet is similar to the healing effect herbalism gave before beta 1.8.

Hylian Luck
Hylian Luck gives a small chance to obtain special items when certain blocks are broken with a sword. Currently, the blocks that are affected by this are:
 * Grass (Melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, cocoa beans)
 * Saplings (Melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, cocoa beans)
 * Dead Bushes (Melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, cocoa beans)
 * Flowers (Potatoes, carrots, apples)

The chance for a drop goes up by 0.01% every level. However, the stats menu only displays whole percentage points. At Level 1000, the chances are 10%.

The drops can be edited in the config files.

Double Drops (All Corresponding Blocks)
This skill doubles the drops obtained from crops and plants. The chance is increased by 0.1% each Level, mathematically guaranteeing double drops at level 1000. In the stats menu, however, the increased percentage will only be visible every 10 levels due to flooring.

Experience Table
This chart details the amount of experience gained from harvesting the respective crops:

(servers may have custom experience set)

Training Methods
Below are listed the best methods for each crop.

Bonemeal: Set up a dispenser with a timer to automatically use bone meal on grass. The flowers grown will give 100 exp and the grass gives 10 exp. It doesn't give as much exp per minute as sugarcane/nether wart if farm size for both crops are massive but with advantage of not needing to wait. An optimized design may even have a skeleton spawner or dark room connected to create an unlimited supply of bones.
 * Pros: No replanting required, nor a huge amount of space
 * Cons: Expensive materials. High amount of bonemeal required. Server redstone restrictions may hinder efficiency.

Cocoa Beans: give 30 exp each, a moderate amount, but they grow very quickly. An optimized design will be one chunk wide farm to have enough cocoa beans growing quickly enough (at 4 blocks high of jungle logs) that the player can constantly harvest them.
 * Pros: Very fast growing crop, does not require water/light.
 * Cons: Moderate amount of exp per crop, also requires jungle logs to build the farms.

Sugarcane: An optimum farm is patterned to maximize space efficiency. A large enough farm can be harvested non-stop. Sugarcane can grow up to three blocks high, and breaking the middle of a full-grown stalk yield 60s exp total.
 * Pros: No replanting, doesn't need light
 * Cons: Sugarcane requires water next to the block it is planted on, making it less space efficient than other crops. Regrows at a fairly slow pace. Require massive space for optimization.

Cactus: A cactus farm of the same size as a sugarcane farm has fewer plants, since all adjacent spaces around cacti need to be empty.
 * Pros: Same growth rate as sugarcane, but does not require water or light. Does not require replanting.
 * Cons: Need sand to place cactus. Causes damage on contact. Drops can be destroyed by cacti. Can only be placed with nothing adjacent to it.

Nether Wart:
 * Pros: Fastest growth rate among all crops without water or light.
 * Cons: Soul Sand is required to plant. The slow walking speed on top of Soul Sand might also impede harvest and replanting, unless you have the Soul Speed enchantment.

Wheat/Carrot/Potato:
 * Pros: Very space efficient, can be built vertically. Optimal conditions require only one water block for every 9x9 farm area.
 * Cons: Requires heavy maintenance and offers no speed advantages compared to other farm-based methods. Cannot be automated, and the farm must be fully grown at each visit to gain the maximum amount of skill points, wasting time whether one micromanages one's farm or not.

Flower/Lily pad (For some servers)/Mushroom: Secondary training method. Swamps are best to find plants.
 * Pros: Highest exp yield per crop.
 * Cons: Unsustainable method since it requires finding a fresh biome every time it is done.

Flower Forest/Flower Clusters: Secondary training method. Flower forests contain large quantities of flowers which can earn you thousands of skill EXP.
 * Pros: Highest exp yield per crop.
 * Cons: Same as above

Mushroom Plantation: A imitation of a Mushroom Biome through placing mushroom on mycelium (obtained by Shroom Thumb, Silk Touch, or slowly spreading mycelium to dirt). An optimum plantation will be on top of the Nether without worries of lots of mobs, space, mycelium blocks, and lighting.
 * Pros: Highest exp yield per crop.
 * Cons: Slowest grow rate, making farms not very efficient. Stunt growth after mushroom grew approximately seven blocks away from originally placed mushroom. Required massive area with lots of mycelium blocks.

Trivia

 * At high levels, Herbalism users can gain more hunger points from crop-based foods than Steak, and the bonus flowers can be used to create Saturation/Regeneration Suspicious Stew.
 * However, Steak still has more points of saturation than crop foods and may be better for players who want additional HP regenerated on the go, and unlike Suspicious Stew, stacks.
 * Hylian Luck is a reference to The Legend of Zelda, a video game in which treasures and in-game money can be found by cutting grass with a sword.
 * Green Terra is likely taken from the name Terra, meaning Earth.