During the monitoring period from October 2015 to mid January 2016,crops in Brazil suffered from unfavorable conditions. Currently soybean isat the flowering stage and first season maize has reached grain-filling.The harvesting of wheat was concluded by the end of 2015. Nationally, agroclimaticindicators show average conditions with 1% below average RAIN, 0.4°C above average air temperature and 3% aboveaverage radiation. However, BIOMSS still decreased 9% compared to the average.For the current season, states can be ranked into two groups:(1) excessive rainfall in southern Brazil and north-eastern Brazil which resultedin insufficient photosynthesis of summer crops, including Sao Paulo, SantaCatarina, Parana and Mato Grosso Do Sul with precipitation 40% or more aboveaverage. RAIN was even double compared with average in Paraiba, Rio Grande Do Norteand the key agricultural states of Rio Grande Do Sul; (2) shortage of rainfallwas observed in most other states leading to low BIOMSS. Although they are notmajor agricultural states, it is noteworthy that BIOMSS in Rio Grande Do Norteand Paraiba was at least 50% above average.

The unevenly distributed rainfall in Brazil generally resulted in belowaverage crop condition as shown by the well below average NDVI since December2015 (Figure 3.8). Below average crops occur in north-eastern coastal regions.In contrast, crops in Mato Grosso Do Sul, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais are above thefive-year average due to favorable moisture during the monitoring period. Thelow VCIx values in north-eastern Brazil coincide with below average cropsaccording to the NDVI departure cluster map. Due to rainfall in majoragricultural regions, CALF was 14% above the five-year average, indicating anincreased summer crops area, which promises a good summer growing seasonoutcome. 

The overall situation for Brazil is still unclear due to low rainfall inthe major soybean producing state Mato Grosso. CropWatch will update theproduction outlook in the next Bulletin to be released in May 2016. With theupdated NDVI time series up to the end of 2015, the whole growing season ofwheat can now be covered and the wheat production estimate was revised to 7million tons, 4.5% above the previous year and 67 ktons above the November 2015forecast.

Figure3.8. Brazil crop condition, October 2015-January 2016

(a) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI

                                       (b) Maximum VCI

(c) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA

                                                              (d) NDVI profiles