During the monitoring period for this bulletin, planting of winter grains was completed in Turkey. Rainfall and temperature were average, while radiation, as measured by the CropWatch RADPAR indicator, was below average. The agroclimatic indicators indicate poor growing conditions for winter crops, which are confirmed by the decrease of the biomass indicator by 2%. The maximum VCI (0.9) points to above average conditions,while the fraction of cropped arable land also showed a spectacular increase of23% compared to the recent five-year average. These changes indicated a good start for winter crops. Below average conditions, however, occur in some areas of the western Marmara Region and Aegean Region, and the east of EasternAnatolia. Most areas across Turkey experienced an above or a close to average crop condition from October to December 2014 and significant unfavorable conditions in January 2015. Altogether, Turkey’s current winter crop so far underwent unfavorable conditions. The final outcome of the season will be largely determined by soil moisture in March, when vegetative grow will resume, and inthe months that follow.

Figure3.29. Turkey crop condition, October2014-January 2015

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

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