In general, crop condition was average in the United States over the CropWatch monitoring period, which covers the harvesting season of 2015 summer crops as well as the planting of 2016 winter crops.

Warm and wet agroclimatic conditions were common (Figure 3.31) with agroclimatic indicators showing significant positive departures of rainfall(+47%) and temperature (1.6°C). The main production zones for winter crops, thesouth of the Great Plains, enjoyed overly wet conditions (RAIN: +85%; TEMP:+0.9°C), including in Kansas (+35%), Oklahoma (+99%), northern Texas (+78%) and Nebraska (+75%). Although excess precipitation hampered farm operations, it improved soil moisture conditions to ensure growth of winter crops.

Serious flooding was recorded in the Mississippi River Basin and resulted from continued heavy rainfall in Tennessee (+78%), Arkansas (+88%),Iowa (+62%), Minnesota (+76%), Missouri (+86%), Nebraska (+75%), Oklahoma(+99%), Wisconsin (+59%) and the lower Mississippi region (+55%). Summer crops were harvested before the onset of the heavy rainfall and production losses are minimal, and abundant rainfall will benefit the planting of maize, soybeans andpaddy in 2016. The cropped arable land fraction shows a positive departure of2%.

Figure3.31. United States crop condition, October2015-January 2016

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

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