The main crops in Huanghuaihai region are summer maize and winter wheat. The whole cycle period of summer maize is from July to September and the winter wheat is sown in early October during this monitoring period. Agroclimatic indicators illustrate that the precipitation increased by 75% dramatically, the temperature and radiation decreased by 0.4 degree and 6% respectively. Abundant rainfall brings a good growth environment for plants, and the potential biomass is 28% higher. As shown on the biomass departure map, most areas presented significant above average level. The cultivated area was equal to the 5YA, and the maximum VCI value was 0.93.

The crop growth condition was lower than the 5YA in mid-August, and was generally close to the average level or the same as the average level in other periods of the monitoring period, which based on the NDVI-based crop growth profile. As it showed in NDVI cluster nad profiles, Zhengzhou City in Henan Province and Suzhou City in Anhui Province (accounting for 7.5% of the total area) were affected by local floods caused by continuous heavy rainfall in mid-July. NDVI was significantly lower than the average level, but it started to improve in August and after September Above average. In central Henan and northern Anhui (accounting for 20.4% of the total area), the NDVI value of early crop growth was slightly lower than the average level, due to abundant rainfall, the crop growth began to improve after August and was higher than the average level. Besides, 28,7% of cropland in Southeastern Hebei, Central and Eastern Shandong presented positive NDVI departures. Only a small part of the area has been showed the poor growth of crop in the map of maximum VCI, even the crop conditions in Southern Henan and Eastern Shandong exceeded the optimal level in recent five years. Due to the impact of flood disasters in some parts of Henan, the sowing of wheat this year has been delayed by 10-15 days compared with previous years. Generally, the crop condition in whole area seems optimistic.

(a) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI

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

(d) Biomass departure

(e) Maximum VCI                                                     

(f)Time series temperature profile

 (g)Time series rainfall profile