The reporting period includes the harvest of this year’s winter wheat, which started in July, the sowing of next year’s winter wheat at September, together with the harvest of spring wheat and maize in September. Overall crop conditions in Romania was good. The maximum VCI was 0.94 and the current cropped arable land fraction was 100%, close to average. At 155 mm, rainfall (- 43%) was lower than average; TEMP exceeded average by 0.3°C and radiation was high by 6%. the biomass accumulation potential BIOMSS was 20% below the recent five-year average due to rainfall deficit. According to the crop condition development graph based on NDVI, conditions were close to average in July to September, but below average in October. Spatial patterns of NDVI inditates that the east and south area went below the average and the central and north area showed better crop condition than average.

Regional analysis

More spatial detail is provided below for three main agro‐ecological zones in the country: the Central mixed farming and pasture Carpathian hills, wjhich are of limited agricultural importance; the Eastern and southern maize, wheat and sugar beet plains and the Western and central maize, wheat and sugar beet plateau.

For the three regions, rainfall anomalies were significant and anomalies reached -46%, -47% and -35% respectively, while temperature was higher by  +0.2℃, +0.1℃ and +0.6℃. Radiation was significantly  (more than 5%) higher than average.  Conditions were alike and differed little from national average in the Eastern and southern maize, wheat and sugar beet plains and the Western and central maize, wheat and sugar beet plateau.

NDVI development profiles followed similar patterns in the three regions. For the Central plateau, crop condition was better than average from July to September and lower thereafter. In the eastern and southern plains, below average NDVI may be the result of the early harvest of winter wheat as irrigation plays a major part in the AEZ . For the western region, crop condition was close to average over  most part of the period, except for a decrease in October.

VCIx values were higher than 0.93 in all three regions; VCIx was below 0.8 in some parts of the southern maize, wheat and sugar beet plains and higher than 1.0 in the central area. CALF of the three regions was close to average

Overall, fair crop condition prevailed in Romania. CropWatch predicts that the 2018 maize production will be up by 7.5% while wheat  will drop by 2.1% below last season's values.

(a). Phenology of major crops

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

(d) Spatial NDVI patterns compared to 5YA           (e) NDVI profiles

(f) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI (Central mixed farming and pasture Carpathian hills (left) and Eastern and southernmaize, wheat and sugarbeet plains (right))

(g) Crop condition development graph based on NDVI (Western and central maize, wheat and sugarbeet plateau)

Table 3.94. Romania’s agroclimatic indicators by sub‐national regions, current season's values and departurefrom 15YA, July ‐October 2018 

Table 3.95. Romania’s agronomic indicators by sub‐national regions, current season's values and departurefrom 5YA, July ‐October 2018 

Table 3.96. CropWatch‐estimated Wheat and Maize production for Romania in 2018 (thousand tons)