Hey,

several frequently called methods need to check the light-level of a block. For example crops, grass etc. to see if they can grow or not.

The check for the current light at a specific location looks at the light-values of the five blocks near it (up,north,east,south,west). If a neighboring chunk is not loaded it will be synchronously be loaded at this point.

As the algorithm for growth is pretty basic an vague this happens very often resulting in a increased base load of the whole process.

A simple fix would be to return a light level of zero if the chunk is currently not loaded. The impact on gameplay would be negligible.