Lower Yangtze

During this monitoring period, late rice matured in the center of the region including in Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei provinces, while semi-late rice and maize have been harvested in the north of the Lower Yangtze region. Crop condition was slightly below last year's and the recent five-year average according to the crop condition development graph. CropWatch agroclimatic and agronomic indicators show that temperature (TEMP) was slightly below average (-0.1°C), while radiation (RADPAR -8%) decreased significantly compared to its fifteen-year average. Meanwhile, rainfall (RAIN) was significantly above average (13%), which brought about a slight increase of production potential (BIOMSS, 4%). According to the BIOMSS map, the biomass production potential was below average in the central and south of this region, especially in the center of Zhejiang, Hunan and Jiangxi province, which is mostly contradicted by fair VCIx values in the range from 0.5 to 0.8. NDVI profiles show that crop condition was slightly above but close to average in 65.4% of cropped areas after mid-July. Across the country, 21.8% of cropped areas located in the south of Jiangsu, Henan, and middle of Anhui provinces displayed above average condition before mid-July, after which NDVI levels dropped to below average. In another 12.8% of the region's total cropped area including central Hubei and northern Zhejiang province, crop condition was slightly below average.

The production of crops in the Lower Yangtze region is expected to be above but close to average.

Figure 4.16a. Lower Yangtze crop condition development graph based on NDVI, comparing the current season up to October 2017 to the previous season, to the five-year average (5YA), and to the five-year maximum

Figure 4.16b. Lower Yangtze spatial NDVI patterns for July to October 2017 (compared to the (5YA) (left) and NDVI profiles associated with these spatial patterns (right)

Figure 4.16c. Lower Yangtze maximum VCI, July-October 2017

Figure 4.16d. Lower Yangtze, July-October 2017