Thanks! Leaf wetness can tell me how long the leaves stay wet. And I realize wet leaves promote decease and pests. But I can't do anything about it, so knowing does't help. I like Dale's description of knowing radiation temp. We have a lot of dew in the mornings.
I don't use Weatherlink, but if I did, no joy on the ag module:
Not for use with WeatherLink for Mac
I'm thinking for the gardens. We have seven raised beds now, I'm adding one in the empty gap for the rhubarb and asparagus first thing in the spring and then at least a long unboxed bed and another plot for grapes and blueberries. And all the boxes have very similar soil content, as when I add amenities to one, I generally add it to all of them (compost, manure, garden soil, peat moss.) So I figured I could mount the transmitter on the same post as the ISS and then drop a soil moisture and temp sensor in one of the adjacent beds. And if you look at where the ISS is on my web cam you'll see that it is very near one of my largest mulched flower beds. So I could bury the wire to that as well, figuring the rest are similar. We do water the veggie garden, flowers, and herbs.
I don't really care about the rest of the yard. We don't water it. It goes dormant late summer and is generally covered with snow in winter. We mow it the rest of the time.
We mostly direct seed or put in transplants from the local greenhouses. We've started seeds indoors and I've built a small hot house. We also use water towers around our tomatoes to help keep the heat of the day in overnight when it is still chilly. We water when the first couple inches feel dry. (Ironically, I'll cover my ISS, which is next to the garden, when we water the garden...) We use black ground cover for warm weather crops and mulch around cool crops.
I guess if I knew that when we planted the peas in March that the air temp was mid-40s and the soil was 50˚, and the soil was xx wet and we had crappy peas. How would that compare with a different set of data another year. Over time, would 47˚ soil prove to be ideal for peas? I have no idea. That's why I'm asking what people use the data for.
Thanks for the replies so far!
Steve