Lower Yangtze Region

During the monitoring period, few crops were in the filed except for winter wheat growing in the northeast and northern part of this region. Rainfall (-12%) and radiation (-21%) was below average based on the CropWatch agro-climatic indicators, while the temperature was above average(+1℃).Unfavorable rainfall and radiation and favorable temperature condition bring about a slight increase of biomass(+6%) in this region. During this monitoring period, crop condition was below average compared to the past five years based on NDVI. The BIOMASS map shows that almost half of this region suffered a marked decrease of -20% in this period, while the biomass increased by 20% in the north and southeast of this region. NDVI profiles shows that the crop condition was mostly poor in 36.5% of the regions cropped areas in south of Jiangsu, middle of Anhui and Hubei province, which was confirmed by the VCIx maps.