In South Africa, the major summer crops,including maize, millet, sorghum and soybean, and winter cereals (such asbarley and wheat) are harvested roughly during the period from May to June andthe period from October to November, respectively. Therefore, maize, millet,sorghum, and soybean have already been harvested at the end of this reportingperiod, while barley and wheat are in their growing stage. Compared with theaverages, rainfall, biomass accumulation and CALF have decreased significantly:  15% for rainfall, 7% for the biomassaccumulation and 16% for CALF. Temperature was 1.1°C higher than average, andRADPAR remained close to the reference value. The NDVI values were lowerthan the five-year average in the first half of the year, after which it wasclose to the average; it exceeded the average value during this monitoringperiod, which can be explained by growing barley and wheat crops. Low VCIsmostly occurred in the Northern areas but the minimum VCI occurred in the FreeState and North West province. In contrast, the southern coastal areas showedrelative high VCIs values (0.8-1.0) in the main winter crop zones. According tofigures (c) and (d), low NDVI occurred in South Africa, it shows production ofwinter cereals in the southern Mediterranean region (the major wheat zone), isexpected to poor to fair. However, the main sugarcane zones in the Eastern Capeand the KwaZulu-Natal presented relative high NDVI values as well as themajor citrus growing areas along the coast from the KwaZulu-Natal to theEastern Cape and the Southern West Cape. Overall crop prospects are optimistic.

Figure3.34. South Africa crop condition, July-October2015

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

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