Del.icio.us  Digg  facebook  MySpace  Twitter  Google  Bookmark Me  LinkedIn  StumbleUpon  Permalink

Midwest Continues to Lag 2010 in Vegetative Health

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 rich vegetative health developing in northern areas of the Mid-Atlantic region stretching up into New England, with conditions vegetative growth improving in the Northern Plains as well.

Vegetative growth and health remains better than normal for areas of the South that have received rainfall this spring, excluding the Southern Plains and areas along the Gulf Coast and the far Southeast where drought continues to intensify. Better than normal growth also occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region into Pennsylvania, areas of the Northern Plains and in the Pacific Northwest.

A dramatic green-up occurred over the past couple of weeks in areas of the Northern Plains, stretching across the Great Lakes into Pennsylvania. Warming temperatures and good rainfall across this region supported crop health. Meanwhile, intensifying drought conditions in the Southeast and along the Gulf Coast led to deteriorating vegetative health conditions.

Vegetative health remains much worse than the previous year across much of the Plains where drought persists, with poor conditions also seen across the heart of the Midwest. Meanwhile, improved rainfall this year has led to much improved vegetative health in the Mid-Atlantic as compared to the previous year.

This graphic shows the average vegetative health for this time of year.