Only a small area of winter wheat is grown in Kyrgyzstan. Spring crops were planted in April in the southern part. Among the CropWatch agro-climatic indicators, RADPAR was above average (+5%), while TEMP (-0.9℃) and RAIN (-13%) were below average. The combination of these factors resulted in a below-average BIOMSS (-9%) compared to the recent fifteen-year average. As shown by the NDVI development graph, the winter vegetation conditions were generally below average, and experienced great negative anomalies in January, which can be attributed to the slower crop growth caused by the below average temperature from winter to spring. The spatial NDVI clustering profile shows that most of the cultivated regions had average or below average crop conditions. Only 18.5% of the cultivated regions (marked in orange) had slightly above average crop conditions throughout the monitoring period. The largest cluster, representing 32.9% of the area, had close-to-average crop conditions at first, and then gradually dropped to below-average from the beginning of March on, probably due to the below-average rainfall and temperature during this period. Other regions also experienced some fluctuations in crop conditions. Blue and dark green marked regions (mainly distributed in central Talas, northern and eastern Chuy, and some parts of Jalal-Abad and Osh) both suffered from low temperatures and had below-average crop conditions in January, then recovered gradually in February. This situation is confirmed by the VCIx map, which shows relatively low values (<0.8) distributed across the whole country. The national average VCIx was 0.59, indicating unfavorable crop conditions. The cropped arable land fraction decreased by 30%, mainly due to the lagging of spring sowing caused by the below average rainfall. Crop production prospect is unfavorable due to the lagging of spring sowing and below average rainfall, which is confirmed by the poor value of the Crop Production Index (CPI) at 0.65.

Figure 3.25 Kyrgyzstan's crop condition, January - April 2023

(a). Phenology of major crops

(b) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI

(c) Maximum VCI

(d) Rainfall index

(e) Temprature index

(f) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA                                          (g) NDVI profiles

Table x. Kyrgyzstan agro-climatic indicators, current season's values and departure from 15YA, Janurary to April 2023

Table x. Kyrgyzstan agronomic indicators, current season's values and departure from 5YA, Janurary to April 2023