In southern China, the period from January to April mainlycovers the growing of early rice and spring maize. The crop condition was poorduring the entire period covered by this bulletin. Crop condition was on parwith the average of the previous five years in the first two months, and thencrops turned to grow worse than average in March and April. The agroclimaticindicators and biomass indicate that rainfall and PAR accumulation kept balancewith the average of the previous thirteen years, but air temperature wasslightly below average over the whole monitoring period. It is worth observingthat excessive rainfall and inadequate solar radiation occurred from lateFebruary to early March in Guangxi and Guangdong province, hampering cropgrowth. This is confirmed by the sharp decrease in the NDVI profiles aroundearly March, mostly in the center of the Southern China region where maximumVCI also stays below 0.8.

Figure4.12. Crop condition Southern China region