The first quarter of the year includes the harvest of summer crops (maize, soybean) in the east (up to June) and somewhat later in the west (June-July). The CropWatch agroclimatic indicators concur to describe the current season as generally very poor. Overall rainfall was 7% below average, accompanied by a slightly above average temperature (+0.6°C) and sunshine (RADPAR +3%) , all resulting in a biomass production potential deficit of 8%. The dry period started in the first half of the growing season during the last quarter of 2015, when the deficit was 26% and the cultivated land fraction (CALF) was 20% below average. The cropped arable land fraction decreased significantly below the average of the last five years (-20%), even if the average VCIx is fair at 0.63. The highest VCIx values occur as a homogeneous patch in Mpumalanga province, but this is not confirmed by other indicators. NDVI profiles show that the worst conditions occurred in the Free State province, especially for maize, while the north-west province generally did better, also thanks to the later phenology. Only the Mediterranean climate area in western Cape, where the season is about to start, received slightly above average rainfall (+2%) accompanied by more significantly below average sunshine (-6%). The production outlook in chapter 5.1 puts the maize output for the current season 32% below last year’s output, which describes a very poor 2016 season.

(a)Crop condition development graph based on NDVI                             (b)Maximum VCI

(c)Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                                        (d)NDVI profiles