Compared with the thirteen-year average, total precipitation(RAIN, -15%), temperature (TEMP, -0.5°C), and PAR (RADPAR, -1%) were belowaverage, resulting in below average BIOMSS. According to HGCA, 97% of the softwheat area and 96% of spring barley was harvested, while maize is in thevegetative stage. The CropWatch agroclimatic indices indicate generally unfavorablecondition at the national scale during the period between April and July in2014, in spiteof high VCIx (0.87), which is confirmed by the BIOMSS decrease of11%. Crop condition was below average from early May to lateJune in the area of the Lorraine, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne, Bourgogne, Franche-Comté,and east Languedoc-Roussillon, covering approximately 16.9% of the nationalterritory (see the NDVI cluster map). The area, however, had mostly favorableconditions from April to May, or returned to normal after July. In general, thewinter crop did well, but the summer crop shows some pockets of below averagecondition. 

(a) Cropcondition development graph based on NDVI                     (b) Maximum VCI

            (c) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                  (d) NDVI Profile