Improving corn yield prediction across the US Corn Belt by replacing air temperature with daily MODIS land surface temperature

•We assess benefits of MODIS LST for predicting corn yield across the US Corn Belt.•LST can predict annual corn yield with less error than air temperature.•Improvements with LST remained when adjusting for common meteorological factors.•LST outperformed air temperature by a much wider margin in 2012, a drought year.