Sapling/Tree Issue: No Longer Bonemeal-able

I've tried this on several reses at time writing this. It appears anything post 1.18 has larger trees broken for bonemeal-ing saplings to get them (IE you can't bonemeal 1 spruce sapling next to 3 others to get standard 2x2 spruce tree).

I used to grow all types of trees in the standard solid 'lines' where the trees were right next to each other . No issues with dark oak, acacia, or spruce. Now it seems like the only ones that are able to be reliably grown are the ones that are 1-wide 'straight' trees. (oak, birch, red/blue nether fungi don't have the issue), but (dark oak, spruce, acacia, jungle) all have the issue.
I haven't really tried to replicate the issue in waste or frontier as much, but I have seen it there.

Another indicator its the mechanic that is broken is if you don't bonemeal the saplings: If you just leave the string of 2x40 saplings sitting on the res and afk for 3-5 MC days literally nothing will grow. Not 1 single tree of any size.

Now, there is more evidence it is either a MC or EMC mechanic issue. rather than a 2x2 set of spruce saplings if you remove 2 so you now have 1x2 sapling grid and then bonemeal one a few times you get the slim spruce tree (1-wide) no problem. You can even bonemeal a 'line' of saplings 1-wide all day; but try and place a second line right next to it and its broken again.
More odd is that intermittently once you manually grow 1 by 1 a 2x2 spruce 'tree', occasionally you can then bonemeal a 2-wide line of saplings off it; but this is both rare and entirely inconsistent in the location/time (of day)/etc that causes it.

I'm wondering if anybody was aware of this bug, and if so, if we're aware of whether it is a MC or EMC one? It makes tree farming really annoying (as spruce is my go-to).

I just tested this and had no issues growing 4 saps of Dark oak and 4 saps of spruce into big trees on Utopia and on smp2

I was going to say, 2x2 spruce and jungle trees need a lot more clear space than other types of trees, including dark oak and 1x1 spruce/jungle. For rainforest-type landscaping, I usually plant the 2x2 spruce/jungle trees first, wait for them to grow and plant understory trees second to minimize the space issue.

I copied this from the wiki

• Oak needs at least 5 spaces above (3×3 column) to grow normally. If a block is present in the growth space (but not directly above the sapling), the tree still grows, but is forced to grow a large variant.
• Birch needs at least 6 spaces above (3×3 column).
• Spruce needs at least 6 spaces above (5×5 column) when placing a single sapling.
  • Giant spruce needs at least 14 spaces above (6x6 column) when planted as 4 saplings in a 2×2 square. Also requires the 4x4 area centered on the saplings at the same level to be empty.[1]
• Jungle needs at least 5 spaces above (3×3 column) when placing a single sapling.
  • Giant jungle needs at least 11 spaces above (6×6 column) when planted as 4 saplings in a 2×2 square. Also requires the 4x4 area centered on the saplings at the same level to be empty.[1]
• Acacia needs at least 6 spaces above (5×5 column).
• Dark oak needs at least 7 spaces above (6×6 column) and must be planted as 4 saplings in a 2×2 square.
• Mangrove needs at least 6 spaces above the propagule. It also requires at least one block (other than mud) north, east, south, and west of the block it is growing on, within one block vertically. The height of the tree depends on how far the roots can spread horizontally. The roots can spread up to 5 blocks away from the propagule.

In addition:

• Saplings can grow only if a player is within a certain radius, even in loaded chunks. For oak saplings, this check applies to individual blocks; for dark oak, acacia and birch, it applies to each chunk.
• A spruce or jungle sapling cannot grow if it is part of a 2×2 square of saplings that doesn't meet the requirements for a giant tree.
  • Except for giant jungle and giant spruce (as noted above), sapling growth is not affected by nearby blocks on the same level as the sapling(s).
• A hanging mangrove propagule cannot grow into a tree.

Talechaser thanks for the info, unfortunately this doesn't seem to matter in my particular situation. It does seem to be specific to a couple of my reses.

Thanks for the info chicken. I'm going to go on a wild guess and say that this is 100% not able to be reproduced in single player world. Purely because it seems to be tied to a couple specific reses.
In a couple in-game DMs I did get visual confirmation from a couple friends that they were able to grow giant spruce/jungle trees w/o issue, even in continuous strips. I tested on my res 7887 which never has stuff grow on it, and it works there (but due to a glitch with that res, it still has notification listing it as available to claim, even though it isn't)...I doubt the notification is at all related, just a +1 oddity for that res.

We can just chalk it up to a particular res anomaly and close the ticket. I just wanted to create one in case a lot of others were seeing stuff like this, which it doesn't seem they are.

I might have bumped into why this is Grimm.
There is an issue with saplings not knowing what part of a group they are with, if the saplings are planted in a mass. In the same way that rails always start one direction and then adjust, saplings start to check for growth criteria from one corner direction (I don't remember where I read this, sorry) and so the straight line of singles will grow well enough for all but dark oaks/mangrove, the 2x2 trees need space between each batch to grow. If you bonemeal the first tree, then place the next saps down you can get a line of larger trees. Perhaps this was the difference in method from you and others in chat that day?