For this monitoring period, crop condition was generally unfavorable during the growing and harvesting stage of springbarley and wheat. Among the CropWatch agroclimatic indicators, RAIN was above average (47%), TEMP below (-0.9%) and RADPAR was average. The combination of the factors resulted in an increase of the biomass production potentialabove over the average of the recent five years. The maximum VCI indicates that crop condition was below average (pixel value below 0.5) in the north-west andin the south of the country.

Spatial NDVI patterns and profiles show that crop condition in 21% of the agricultural areas was below average inAugust and September, and then again at the end of October, mainly inthe north (especially in Severo-kazachstanskaya, Akmolinskaya,Kustanayskaya and Karagandinskya). 21% of the agricultural areas werebelow average in late of October in parts ofSeverokazachstanskaya, Kustanayskaya, Akmolinskaya, Pavlodarskaya,Aktyubinskya, Karagandinskya and Voskochno-Kazachstanskaya. The poorcrop condition in these areas resulted from uneven rainfall distribution intime and space. In 19.6% of the agricultural areas, including some of the majoragricultural areas, crop condition was persistently above average thanks tosatisfactory rainfall in the east of Severo-kazachstanskaya, northPavlodarskaya as well as in scattered eastern areas borderingChina. According to the crop condition development graph, overall cropcondition was below both last year's and the five-year average from August.However, thanks to a spectacular increase in cropped arable land (+36%) theoutput of summer crops is bound to increase.

 Figure 3.18. Kazakhstan crop condition, July-October 2015

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

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