Late Maturity of Crops Shows up in Satellite Imagery
Vegetative greenness is the greatest in areas where crops are slow to mature due to late planting.
Compiled by staff
Published: Aug 27, 2011
Farm Futures has partnered with the Ecology and Agriculture Spatial Analysis Laboratory (EASAL) at Kansas State University to bring these maps to you. Each map is composed from satellite data taken over a two-week period. The EASAL maps show current vegetative health for the past two weeks and compare vegetative health with the previous two-week period, with the previous year and with the long-term average. Green reflects healthy vegetative development, while brown reflects a lack of healthy vegetative biomass production.
Satellite imagery shows the most active vegetative growth is taking place in the heart of the Midwest as corn and soybean growth peaks, while the South has scattered areas of concern. Adverse weather continues to limit healthy vegetative growth in the western Plains, with conditions too wet in the north and too dry in the Southern Plains.
The late maturity of this year's crops shows up in this graphic, with overall vegetative greenness higher than average across the Northern Plains, much of the Midwest and the Southeast. Intense drought in the Southern Plains continues to producer little to no vegetative growth in that region.
Recent rains dramatically improved vegetative growth from central Oklahoma to southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas. The scattered nature of this month's rains show up as improved crop and vegetative health across much of the eastern half of the country, especially in the Mid-Atlantic, eastern Midwest and portions of the Southeast. Areas of the northwestern Midwest actually benefited from a drier weather pattern.
The late maturity of the corn crop in the far eastern Midwest really shows up in this graphic, when comparing vegetative health to the previous year at this point. The late-maturing wheat crop in the Northern Plains shows up as increased greenness over the previous year, but scattered areas are seeing that offset by increased disease pressure. Of course, crop health is very poor from central Kansas south to the Gulf Coast due to this year's drought.
This graphic shows the long-term average vegetative health for this time of year.
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Tagged: Drought, farm, wheat, farm futures, soybean
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