Use of auto-germ to model germination timing in the sagebrush-steppe.

Germination timing has a strong influence on direct seeding efforts, and therefore is a closely tracked demographic stage in a wide variety of wildland and agricultural settings. Predictive seed germination models, based on soil moisture and temperature data in the seed zone are an efficient method of estimating germination timing. We utilized Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to create Auto-Germ, which is an Excel workbook that allows a user to estimate field germination timing based on wet-thermal accumulation models and field temperature and soil moisture data.