During the current monitoring period, winter crops were inthe vegetative stage in central Europe to western Russia. Warmer and drier thanusual weather has been experienced for the whole MPZ with decreased rainfall(-17%) and increased temperature (1.1°C)and PAR (4%) condition, compared with the recent thirteen-year average. Thecrop condition degrades from west to east, with favorable condition in Polandand relatively poor conditions in western Russia.

As indicated by the rainfall profile analysis, only the extremesouth of western Russia (including Karatchayevo-cherkesiya Rep.,Kabardino-balkariya Rep., Severnaya Osetiya-alaniya Rep., Ingushetiya Rep., andChechnya Rep.) received well above average rainfall in mid-January. Crimea aswell as Hunedoara, Alba, and Sibiu regions in Romania experienced above averagerainfall in early March, while other regions present average to slightly belowaverage moisture condition. The whole region experienced a severe temperaturedrop at the end of January and the beginning of February (as much as 7.5°Cbelow average in the east and north, including most of Ukraine) but conditionsreturned to average in February and remained above average until the end ofMarch.

The scarce rainfall led to a slight drop in potentialbiomass for the whole MPZ (-4% compared to the five-year average), which isconsistent with the moderate level of maximum VCI at 0.79. If only temperatureand rainfall are considered, a large positive biomass departure would beexpected for the west of the MPZ (including Kostromskaya Oblast,Nizhegorodskaya Oblast, and the Southern Region in Russia), while the centerand south of the MPZ (including most parts in Romania and Ukraine) would suffera negative departure. However, the actual area of cropped land is anotherimportant factor in this crop condition assessment: uncropped arable land wasmostly distributed in Russia, especially in the south of Chelyabinsk Oblast andTatarstan Rep., which corresponds to the below average maximum VCI. The maximumVCI map also indicates favorable crop condition in Poland (VCIx of 0.98),followed by Romania (VCIx of 0.96), in which most of the area experienced arecord high VCIx value. The VHI cluster and profile also confirm the differentpatterns from west to east, with downward crop condition for west Russia fromMarch to April (indicated by blue and orange) and an upward trend for theremaining countries in this MPZ (highlighted in red and green).

Figure 2.6. Central Europe-WesternRussia MPZ: Agroclimatic and agronomic indicators, January-April 2014

                 Profiles of VHI departure from average