Mushroom Colonies are clusters of mushrooms from the Farmer’s Delight mod that grow on 
Rich Soil, and you’ll find them growing wild on the 
Mycelium of Mushroom Fields. There’s a 
Brown Mushroom Colony and a 
Red Mushroom Colony, and both of them work the same way, only giving you a different mushroom.
They’re the mod’s way of farming mushrooms, as a colony on Rich Soil will keep growing back after you harvest it, a bit like a crop that never needs replanting. You can make your own by planting a normal mushroom on Rich Soil, so you won’t even need to find a Mushroom Fields biome to get started.
Finding It
Wild colonies generate on Mycelium in Mushroom Fields, mixed in with normal Brown and Red Mushrooms, and they can be at any of their four stages. If you break one by hand, you’ll get the mushrooms but lose the colony, so you’ll want Shears with you if you’re planning to take some home.
To keep the colony itself, it needs to be fully grown, and then you can break it with 
Shears. Picking one up for the first time gets you the Fungus Among Us advancement, and the colony you pick up will be fully grown again when you place it back down.
The easier way is to make one yourself, by planting a 
Brown Mushroom or a 
Red Mushroom on top of a block of Rich Soil. The next time the soil gets a random tick, it will turn the mushroom into a colony at its first stage, and you’re able to plant a mushroom on Rich Soil in any light level.
It’s only plain Rich Soil that will turn mushrooms into colonies, so if you plant a mushroom on 
Rich Soil Farmland, it will just stay a mushroom. You’ll also be able to find a Brown Mushroom Colony in some of the Compost Heaps that generate in Taiga villages.
If you don’t have any Rich Soil yet, you’ll need to make it from 
Organic Compost first, which takes a while to turn into soil. There’s more on that on the Rich Soil page, along with what else the soil is able to do for a farm.
Growing
A Mushroom Colony only grows when it’s sitting on Rich Soil, where it has a 1 in 4 chance to move on a stage each time it gets a random tick. It goes through four stages in all, getting bigger and adding more mushrooms each time, and it stops once it’s fully grown.
Bone Meal will push it on one or two stages at a time, and it’ll work even when the colony isn’t on Rich Soil, so you’re able to grow one anywhere if you’ve got the Bone Meal to spare. The Rich Soil’s own growth boost doesn’t affect colonies, though, since they’re already growing on it by themselves.
Where You Can Place Them
You’re able to place a colony on Mycelium, 
Podzol, Rich Soil or Organic Compost in any light level. On any other solid block, it will need the light to be below 13, the same as normal mushrooms, so a colony in a bright room on 
Stone will pop off.
Placing a colony always puts it down fully grown, which means you can take one from the wild and harvest it straight away. It won’t grow back unless it’s on Rich Soil, though, so a colony on a shelf in your kitchen is only good for decoration once you’ve harvested it.
Harvesting
There are two ways to harvest a colony without breaking it, and both of them leave the colony in place to grow again. Using Shears on it takes off a single mushroom and moves it back one stage, while using a Knife on it takes off one mushroom for each stage it’s grown and sends it back to the start.
| Method | Mushrooms | Colony Afterward |
|---|---|---|
| Shears (use) | 1 | Goes back one stage |
| Knife (use) | 1 per stage, up to 3 | Goes back to the first stage |
| Breaking it | 2 to 5, more for bigger colonies | Gone |
| Shears (break, fully grown) | None | Drops the colony itself |
Using a Knife on a fully grown colony is the quickest way to harvest a whole farm, as you’ll get three mushrooms every time it finishes growing. Breaking it gives you more mushrooms at once, up to 5, but then you’ll need another mushroom and some time on Rich Soil to start over again.
If you’ve got a colony as an item, you can put it on a 
Cutting Board and use a Knife on it to get 5 mushrooms. That’s the same as breaking a fully grown one, so it’s only really worth doing with spare colonies you’ve picked up with Shears.
Uses
The mushrooms from a colony are the same Brown and Red Mushrooms you’d find in caves, so they’ll go into any recipe that uses them. In the 
Cooking Pot, that includes 
Mushroom Rice, 
Mushroom Stew, 
Rabbit Stew, 
Vegetable Noodles and the 
Stuffed Pumpkin.
Colonies and mushrooms also help Organic Compost turn into Rich Soil faster when they’re placed next to it, so a few colonies around your compost will speed it up. You can put a spare colony in a 
Composter as well, where it’s guaranteed to add a layer every time.
Since they look a lot fuller than a single mushroom, colonies are handy as decoration as well, and they’ll stay put on Mycelium or Podzol in any light. The Rich Soil under a farm of them will keep them growing for as long as you want, as long as nothing replaces the soil.
FAQ
Plant a Brown or Red Mushroom on Rich Soil and it will turn into a colony on its own, or find one in Mushroom Fields and break it with Shears once it’s fully grown. Breaking it any other way will only give you mushrooms.
Mushroom Colonies only grow on Rich Soil, where they move through four stages on their own with a 1 in 4 chance each random tick. Bone Meal will speed them up anywhere, and they don’t need darkness while they’re on Rich Soil.
Use a Knife on it to take one mushroom per stage, up to three, or Shears to take one at a time. Either way the colony stays where it is and grows back, whereas breaking it gives you up to 5 mushrooms but removes the colony.
They only need it when they’re on a block that isn’t Mycelium, Podzol, Rich Soil or Organic Compost, in which case the light has to be below 13. On any of those four blocks, you can place them in full daylight.
