Minecraft wiki entry for Crop_farming, associated text: Wheat, carrots and potatoes have a total of 8 growth stages. Beetroot has 4 growth stages. For wheat, each stage is a little taller and darker than the last, and the crop is mature when the wheat turns brown. Carrots and potatoes have only 4 distinct appearances—each pair of stages appears identical except that stage 7 shares the appearance of stages 5-6 (so the player can tell if it's fully mature or not, otherwise the fully mature and its previous stage can confuse the player). When mature (stage 8 for carrots and potatoes, stage 4 for beetroots), carrots and beetroots show bright crops protruding from the ground, while on a potato plant, the leaves appear significantly taller than in previous stages.