China

As of the end of this month, winter wheat has been harvested, and early-rice harvesting progress was near the end. In Xinjiang, North China, and Northeast regions, spring corn was in the spinning stage, while summer corn in North China was in the jointing stage. Soybean in the Northeast was in the flowering and pod stage, while in Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, and Hebei is in the three leaves stage. Middle-season rice in most parts of southern and central China was in the stage of jointing and booting.

Remote sensing crop condition monitoring in early July showed that crop condition was worse than in previous years in certain regions, including the southeastern Gansu, Shandong, Hebei, Chongqing, and central Jiangsu, due to high temperature and dry weather. However, in eastern Sichuan, southeastern Henan, northern Anhui and eastern Hubei, crop condition was slightly better than the average due to favorable water and heat condition. In other areas, crop condition remained the same as in previous years. Overall, crop condition was currently slightly worse than previous years in main producing areas.

According to agricultural indicators, there was a frequent and extreme high-temperature weather in the early-July. Certain regions in North China, Huanghuai and Xinjiang experienced historically high temperature, coupled with significantly lower rainfall than average, leading to poor soil moisture condition and even drought in some areas. By the end of the month, precipitation in Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and other areas was significantly higher than average. Additionally, influenced by Typhoon "Doksuri", most of the areas in North China, Huanghuai and the Northeast experienced intense and prolonged precipitation. The heavy precipitation is expected to alleviate the previous drought to some extent, but it may also lead to flooding in certain areas. Overall, most of the southern areas have normal water and heat condition, which is favorable for crop growth, while in the northern regions, drought conditions have eased, but some areas have experienced flooding, resulting in relatively poor crop condition.

Figure 1: NDVI departure from 5 years average (2023.6.26 - 2023.7.11)