In Mid to Late-May 2022, most winter wheat in China was in the stage of grain filling to maturity, and the harvest in southern part almost concluded. As for the early rice, most of it was at the tillering to jointing stage in lower Yangtze River basin and it was at jointing to boosting stage in Southern China. The spring maize was mainly at early development stage in Northwest China, and was at sowing to emergence stage in Northeast China.

Nationwide, the spring sowing is coming to an end. The North China Plain and other major summer grain producing areas are properly irrigated with generally favorable radiation and temperature. The late sowing effect on winter wheat yields has basically been eliminated. As far as local areas are concerned, above average temperature and low precipitation in Central Shaanxi, Southeastern Gansu and Northern Anhui results in less favorable crop growth condition; Since mid-May, the lower temperature, rainy weather and insufficient sunshine hampered the photosynthetic of early rice, resulting in lower than five years average (5YA) crop condition. In Northeast, due to the high precipitation and low temperature, spring sowing was delay by a week, therefore the growth of crops was lower than the same period of previous years. As temperature rises in May, it is beneficial to the emergence and early development of spring crops. In general, the crop growth condition is normal compared with 5YA.

Figure 1: NDVI departure from 5 years average (9th - 24th May, 2022)