The current Bulletin covers the peak vegetative development and maturity of summer crops in the MPZ. The harvest of maize, soybean and other summer crops will be concluded in May. Overall crop condition in South America was average during the monitoring period. 

The region showed close to average rainfall (+2% above average). However, according to rainfall departure clusters (Figure 2.3a) spatial variability was large. Some areas experienced large precipitation excesses, such as the north-eastern Pampas, Uruguay and South Brazil. In East Paraguay and the border area between the Paraná region of Brazil and Paraguay, precipitation deficit had occurred in November 2018 during the previous CropWatch reporting period. TEMP showed a slight reduction of 0.3°C. All of the areas illustrated in Figure 2.3b showed high variability in temperature anomalies during the period with a range of change of 3°C or larger. Central Mato Grosso in North-west Brazil suffered abnormally warm weather from February to early April.  Other areas showed lower values around March and positive anomalies at the beginning and end of this reporting period. Argentina and Uruguay recorded negative anomalies in March at a time when almost no anomalies occurred in Brazil. RADPAR showed an increment of 1 % over average.

BIOMSS was 2 % above average, again with a lot of spatial variability (Figure 2.3g). Negative anomalies were observed in the South of the Pampas, Chaco and Center of Brazilian agricultural area, while positive anomalies where observed in North-east Argentina, as well as in Northern and Southern Brazil. As was also observed during the previous reporting period, all arable land was cropped (Cropped Arable Land Fraction of 100 %), which represents a 3 % increment compared to 5 years average (Figure 2.3f). Maximum VCI showed on average values of 0.75. Values higher than 0.8 were observed in most of the region, with the exception of some places in South-west and North-west Argentina and some patches in Brazil (Figure 2.3e), including southern Rio Grande do Sul and eastern Paraná States. Minimum VHI showed in general values lower than 50 (Figure 2.3h). In particular quite low values (less than 15) were dominant over some of the main agricultural subregions like Paraná in Brazil and the Argentinian Pampas, where crops suffered from short-term water stress during the rainfall deficit period.

Figure 2.3. South America MPZ:Agro-climatic and agronomic indicators, January - April 2019.

a. Spatial distribution of rainfall profiles.  b. Profiles of rainfall departure from average (mm)

c. Spatial distribution of temperature profiles.    d. Profiles of temperature departure from average (mm).

e. Maximum VCI

f. Cropped arable land

g. Biomass accumulation potential departure

h. VHI Minimum