Generally, crops in the United Kingdom showed favorable condition over the reporting period. Currently,most of the winter wheat and oats and all the winter barley and winter rape have been harvested, while spring barley is in the vegetative stages. Compared to average, the CropWatch agroclimatic indicators show that rainfall over there porting period was average, with slightly below average radiation (RADPAR,-2%) and temperature (TEMP, -1.1°C). With water stress in May and hightemperature in June, BIOMSS decreased by 7% compared to the five-year avera geat the national scale. As a result of adequate rainfall in April and theappropriate temperature conditions from April to June, the national NDVI valueswere well above average and even close to the five-year maximum from April to June according to the crop condition development graph. From late June to July,due to reduced rainfall and warmer-than-seasonal weather, the national NDVI values dropped to below average. The spatial NDVI patterns, when compared tothe five-year average, and corresponding NDVI departure cluster profiles indicate above average NDVI values over the country for more than 51.2% ofarable land (including south of Lincoln-shire, most of Cambridge-shire andSuffolk, Bucks, and the shires of Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick, Hereford, Worcester,Northampton, and Perth and Kinross, as well as the west of Cornwall, middle ofDurham, and the north of Northumber land. The spatial pattern is also reflectedby the maximum VCI in the different areas, with a VCIx of 0.89 for the country overall.

Figure3.14. United Kingdom crop condition, April-July2015

a)Crop condition development graph based on NDVI               (b)Maximum VCI

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