Modeling two-inch soil temperatures using daily air temperature observations

The physical, chemical, and biological processes within soils are affected by temperature. However, soil temperatures are not routinely measured at most operational weather stations. The observation of these data is limited to a few widely spaced agricultural research sites. Thus, it is difficult to infer soil temperatures across the region. This presents problems in many Integrated Pest Management (IPM) applications that require soil temperature to track weed germination and insect development