Farmer Focus: Evapotranspiration metrics are bringing me joy
© Phil Weedon The past month has been extremely busy at Shimpling Park Farm, and so has the weather. We’ve had snow, wind, rain, as well as some glorious sunshine.
My favourite screen on my weather app is the one that shows “evapotranspiration”. It brings so much joy each time I open it up to see its metric is in positive figures.
It means that soils are drying and warming, which is directly linked to an uplift in the general mood around the farm and increased activity in the machinery pit lanes in anticipation of spring field work.
See also: Crop Watch: Hopes for drier weather and wheat T0 strategies
About the author
I have been enjoying the extending evenings in my high seat in our woods, listening to the birds while trying to get our burgeoning breeding deer population under control before the season closes, to save our older and newly planted trees.
Twilight in an ancient woodland – it doesn’t get any better than that.
My mission to get sparrows back into our farmyard was encouraged by a visit from Mark Knowers, conservation officer from the RSPB.
The village has a good population, and so I am trying to tempt them with small seeds to my newly erected nest boxes our older barns.
The roofers working on the farm house have been grateful too for the drier weather as they replace its ageing slates, many of which have been held on by lips of lead for too many years.
School visits are back in earnest, with Alice herding children around the farm, turning farm facts into mathematics, our herbal leys into biology lessons, and hand-milled wheat and baking into applied chemistry.
Now that evapotranspiration has waved its wand over the sun and wind, we have started sowing our milling oats and malting barley.
The farmyard hums with familiar spring activity as the drills roll. Harvest 2026 seems only just around the corner.
Staying sharp shouldn't be a chore
