Using Satellite Information in Agrometeorological Forecasting

The joint use of satellite and ground-based data for monitoring the major grain crops during the autumn and spring-summer vegetation periods is considered. The developed method for quantifying winter grain crop conditions at the end of the autumn vegetation (the area of winter crops in poor condition) is described. Satellite data are used to calculate average long-term dynamics of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for the major grain crops in the spring-summer period. Taking into account meteorological observations, this allows assessing crop conditions as compared with those in the previous year or with the multiyear mean, in particular, in the years with droughts. Based on the revealed relationships of the NDVI with the crop yield in the regions of the European part of Russia, the periods of the most effective agrometeorological forecasting of the yield are found for the major grain crops. The developed methods for forecasting the yield of winter and all grain crops in the main grain-growing regions of the Russian Federation are presented.