OK: 03:34:40 CST Thursday, 15 February 2018

Due to very low temperatures no crops are in the field in Inner Mongolia during most of October to January, but very favourable winter conditions will benefit  the forthcoming spring crops. Compared with average conditions, the CropWatch agroclimatic indicators show a marked increase of RAIN (+27%) and a decrease of RADPAR (-4%), but average TEMP (-0.4°C). Much water fell as snow since December. BIOMSS is significantly above the five-year average for the same period (+20%).

In October, below average conditions had little effect as the crops had reached maturity, even if excess rainfall locally hampered harvesting activities. VCIx was below 0.5 in the north; the observation is consistent with the potential biomass distribution (values more than 10% below average). In general, abundant snow will provide adequate soil moisture for the land preparation and early growth of 2018 spring crops.

(a)Crop condition development graph based on NDVI

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

(d)Maximum VCI

(e)Biomass