Winter wheat, as well as winter barley and some legumes are the main crops grown in Morocco during this monitoring period. Winter wheat sowing started in November and was completed in December. Rainfall was below average, except for late November and early December. Abundant rainfall in early January helped replenish the soil moisture.  The CropWatch agro-climatic indicators showed a reduction by 6% in rainfall as compared to the 15YA. Generally, the temperature was at the 15YA but its profile indicates that it was slightly below the 15YA except for mid-November, mid-December and late January. The RADPAR was 1.5% below the 15YA while the BIOMSS was only 3% above the 15YA. The nationwide NDVI graph indicates that crops conditions were below the 5YA from October to December while they improved to the 5YA during January. The NDVI spatial clustering map shows that conditions of only 9.6% were above the 5YA, 44.3% were below the 5YA, and 46.1 fluctuated around the 5YA. The cereal production in Morocco is heavily dependent on rainfall since only 15% of the country's cropland is irrigated. This explains the below-average crop conditions from October to December. The subsequent recovery in January can be attributed to the heavy rainfalls in early January.  The whole country VCIx value was 0.70 and the CALF exceeded the 5YA by 12%. All in all, crop conditions were close to normal.

Regional analysis

CropWatch adopts three agro‐ecological zones (AEZs) relevant for crop production in Morocco:The Sub-humid northern highlands, the Warm semiarid zone and the Warm sub-humid zone. All agro-climatic indicators measured for these three agro‐ecological zones show nearly the same patterns. The reductions in the rainfall for the three zones were 8%, 9% and 5% below the 15YA respectively while the temperature was the same as the 15YA over the three zones. The RADPAR was below the 15YA by 1% only. The BIOMSS was below the 15YA by 1% and 2% for the first and third zone respectively while it was above the 15YA by 8% in the second zone. In the Sub-humid northern highlands and Warm sub-humid zones, the crop conditions based on the NDVI graph indicated that they were below the 5YA from October to November and then were near to the 5YA during January. As compared to the 5YA, CALF increases ranged between 9 and 14% in the three zones.  Maximum VCI was lowest in the West semiarid zone (0.64) and similar in the other two zones, where it ranged between 0.74 to 0.77.

Figure 3.28 Morocco’s crop condition, October 2020 - January 2021

(a). Phenology of major crops

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

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

(f) crop condition development graph based on NDVI, Sub-humid northern highlands and (g) Warm semiarid zones

(h) crop condition development graph based on NDVI, Warm subhumid zones

(i) Time series profile of rainfall (j) Time series profile of temperature 

Table 3.45 Morocco’s agroclimatic indicators by sub-national regions, current season's values and departure from 15YA, October 2020 - January 2021

Table 3.46 Morocco’s agronomic indicators by sub-national regions, current season’s values and departure from 5YA, October 2020 - January 2021