The period from January to April 2014 covers thewhole growing period of the second (dry season) rice crop and the harvest ofthe main (wet season) rice crop in Cambodia. Crop condition was below averageduring the entire period covered by this bulletin. The results of the climaticindicators and biomass monitoring by CropWatch indicate that the countryenjoyed a favorable rainfall and PAR accumulation with values about 5% higherthan the five-year average. On the contrary, temperature was slightly lowerthan the average. As a result, the biomass accumulation shows a 10% decreasecompared with the average of the last five years. Crop condition was a littlebetter than average in January and turned to below average in the followingthree months. NDVI profiles show that crop condition in 13.1% of the croppedarea (mainly Banteay Meanchey and Battambang, as well as northwest Cambodia)was above average from January to April, but nearly all the remaining areaswere below average during the monitoring period. Most of Cambodia has a maximumVCI in the range of 0.5 to 1.0. Overall, although crop condition was belowaverage during the monitoring period, the absence of major setbacks and thepresence of favorable conditions during the early stages of rice crops suggesta good rice production can be expected for 2014, slightly up from 2013.

(a) Crop condition development graph based onNDVI   (b) Maximum VCI

(C) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                         (D)  NDVI Profile