OK: 04:02:24 CST Thursday, 15 February 2018

Few crops were in the field except for winter wheat growing in the northeastern and northern parts of the region. Crop condition in Lower Yangtze region was generally below the recent five-year average. According to the CropWatch agroclimatic indicators, Rainfall (RAIN, -24%) ,radiation (RADPAR, -18%) and temperature (TEMP,-0.4℃) were all below average, which may lead to unfavorable crop condition according to biomass production potential (BIOMSS, -12%). Based on NDVI, crop condition was below average compared to the five-year average. The BIOMSS map shows that most of this region suffered a marked decrease of 20% in BIOMSS, while an increase of 20% occurred in the south of Henan, Jiangsu, middle of Anhui and north of Hubei province. NDVI profiles show that the crop condition in 92.1% of this region was close to average until December, but it deteriorated at beginning of. Overall crop prospects in this region are unfavorable at this time of he season. 

Figure 4.16a. Lower Yangtze crop condition development graph based on NDVI, comparing the current season up to January 2017 to the previous season, to the five-year average (5YA), and to the five-year maximum

Figure 4.16b. Lower Yangtze spatial NDVI patterns for October 2017 to January 2018  (compared to the (5YA) (left) and NDVI profiles associated with these spatial patterns (right)

Figure 4.16c. Lower Yangtze maximum VCI,  October 2017-January 2018 

Figure 4.16d. Lower Yangtze, October 2017-January 2018