In China’s Northeast, the monitoring period from April to July mainly covered the growing of spring maize, spring wheat,one-season rice, and soybean. Overall and across the monitoring period, crop condition was comparable with the recent five-year average. The NDVI clusters and profiles also illustrate this: crop condition is average in about 70% of the area and below average in parts of north Heilongjiang and west Jilinprovinces before July because of the shortage of rain that affected the maturity phase. VCIx values were between 0.5 and 0.8 in nearly the entire region. Over the reporting period, only 1% of arable land was uncropped. The CropWatch agroclimaticand agronomic indicators show that the region suffered a 25% drop in rainfall(RAIN) compared to average, while temperature (TEMP) and PAR (RADPAR)accumulation were just average. Biomass accumulation (BIOMSS) was 17% below thefive-year average, resulting in poor crops in the area.

Figure4.8. Crop condition China Northeast region, April-July 2015

 (a) Crop condition development graph based onNDVI

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

(d)Maximum VCI                                                           (e) Biomass