Phenocast / plants module in Broodminder App

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Seems @lorenzo has integrated something similar to phenodata – but much more customizable and with a nice UI, well done! – in the Broodminder App calld “Phenocast” / plants module:

See also the “Plants” user documentation at broodminder or …

… from the Broodminder Newsletter “Introducing Plants” 04/2025:

Hello BroodMinder Community,

We’re buzzing with excitement to announce the launch of a brand-new tool in MyBroodMinder: the Plants module.

Track your apiary resources like never before to better care for your bees.

Track the Flowers Your Bees Love

You can now link each apiary to as many plant species as you need — with over 500 searchable plants in our database. Pick the key nectar and pollen sources to tell your apiary’s full story.

Plan Ahead with Calendar View

From the Plants tab, you’ll now see:

  • A table of forecasted phenological stages
  • Adjustable blooming windows
  • Your recorded bloom dates, marked right on the timeline

This gives you a visual way to understand and predict bloom timing — key for maximizing colony productivity.

Build Custom Dashboards

Pair your plants with other widgets like:

  • Productivity
  • Nectar Flow Index
  • Brood development

Create your own ecosystem overview — all from your custom dashboard.

Meet Phenocast: Predict the Bloom

We’ve been developing Phenocast since 2022. It uses your past bloom observations together with the weather history to assess future events.

The more observations you enter, the better the forecasting gets.

We recommend logging at least 3 years of bloom data — if you do, Phenocast should start delivering 10-day forecasts with 1–2 day accuracy.

Want even sharper results? Log early stages like bud burst to boost precision.

A Note on Annuals :warning:

Phenocast does not currently support annual plants (like sunflowers or rapeseed) reliably due to variable sowing dates. You can still log observations, but predictions may be less accurate.

Want to know more?

Get started by watching the video below, then dive deeper into the details with our complete guide

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Thank you Clemens for the note,

Yes, we’ve been iterating on the concept for a while now — over 3 years of bloom tracking, especially on black locust, to build a model accurate enough to be useful. In 2024, we finally reached a ±1-day accuracy, so we felt it was the right time to release it.

Of course, there’s still a lot to learn when it comes to phenological forecasting, and we’re really looking forward to user feedback over the next few months — both to get a sense of how it’s adopted and to assess real-world performance across a wide variety of plants. We currently provide a library of 500 species, and users can request additions filling a form.

We hope Phenocast can be a useful tool not only for better beekeeping management but also in planning and optimizing pollination activities.