This analysis covers the sowing and early growing stage of winter cereals in Uzbekistan, mostly winter wheat and barley. The country as a whole enjoyed a sharp increase of rainfall (+59%) and biomass (+51%); temperature was close to averae while RADPAR (-9%) was below average. Crop was condition generally favorable. A detailed look at the indicators shows favourable conditions in many areas (such as Ferghana, Andijan, Tashkent, Samarkhand, Nawoiy, Denow, Sherabad and Termez) where the maximum VCI was mostly above 0.8. Crop condition in 29 percent of arable land was below average of the recent five-year from early December to early January. More precise spatial information is provided by the NDVI clusters, which show a sharp drop in late November and a recovery thereafter in western and central areas (Karakalpakistan, Shakhrisabz, Gulistan, Jazzakh and Tashkent). From December to January, abundant rainfall benefited crops, the condition of which was above average level according to both crop condition

Figure3.32. Uzbekistan 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