winter crops in Romania generally enjoyed good condition. The planting of maize has started in April. Consistent with the prevailing warmer than usual weather over most of the European regions (reported by the JRC/MARSbulletin), Romania experienced scarce rainfall, abundant radiation, and positive thermal anomalies, with the CropWatch rainfall indicator down 13%, thePAR indicator up 0.5%, and temperature up 2 degrees compared with the recentthirteen-year average. The dry and warm conditions lead to a drop of 11% of potential biomass accumulation in Romania.

More arable land was cropped in this monitoring periodthan the last five-year average (up 0.9%). The NDVI development profile showsan upward trend for the country’s average crop condition, which was poor inJanuary and February but recovered in March and gradually reached the level ofthe recent five-year maximum. The NDVI spatial profiles also demonstrate thatthis pattern was similar over the whole country. The VCIx value of Romaniaranked second (0.96) among the monitored European countries. The best cropcondition areas largely lie in the major wheat growing area includingMehedinti, Dolj, Teleorman, Giurgiu, Calarasi, and Constanta, which indicate apromising yield prospect in Romania

Figure 3.26. Romania crop condition, Jan-Apr 2014 

(a) Maximum VCI                                                                   (b) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA

                   (c) NDVI profiles                                                                                (d) Crop condition development graph based onNDVI