During this monitoring period, winter wheat and rapeseed had reached maturity and been harvested by June in Hubei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. The semi-late and late rice crops are still growing in the south and the center of the region including Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei provinces, while early rice has been harvested.

According to the CropWatch agro-climatic indicators, the accumulated precipitation and photosynthetically active radiation from April to July was close to the long-term average in this region. However, the precipitation changed greatly during the monitoring period. The rainfall profiles also indicate that the precipitation in mid-May exceeded the 15-year maximum, while the precipitation in mid-July was less. The temperature was slightly above average by 0.3℃. The overall normal agro-climatic conditions resulted in a 3% positive departure of the biomass production potential. The potential biomass departure map shows that in most places in this region, it varied between -10% and 20%. The potential biomass levels in Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi and southern Hunan were up to 20% higher than 15YA. As shown in the NDVI development graph, crop conditions were slightly below the 5-year average. The crop growth in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Hubei (accounting for 52.6% of the cropland in the region) was close to previous years from April to May. In June, the NDVI was below the 5YA, but improved to average levels in July.  The average VCIx of this region is 0.94, and most of the area had VCIx values ranging from 0.8 to 1.

Overall, the crop conditions in the lower Yangtze region are normal.

Figure 4.15 Crop condition China Lower Yangtze region, April - July 2021

(a)  Crop condition development graph based on NDVI                 (b) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA       (c) NDVI profiles

      (d) Time series rainfall profile                             (e) Time series temperature profile

(f) Maximum VCI                                                       (g) Biomass departure