USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) performed a mid-season crop assessment in Zimbabwe from February 23-27 and in South Africa from February 17-20, 2009. The purpose of the trip was to update current crop estimates for both countries and ground truth satellite imagery and various spatial crop models with actual ground conditions. These ground surveys were conducted during mid-season when crop growth is near maximum leaf area index (LAI) for better accuracy in classifying crop types from medium resolution satellite imagery. Crop conditions in South Africa ranged from very good to excellent, and the remainder of this survey report will focus on crop area and crop conditions in Zimbabwe.
The 2009 crop assessment travel in Zimbabwe was conducted in cooperation with the United States Agency of International Development (USAID) in Zimbabwe. The 2009 crop assessment route is shown in Figure 1, where over 750 photos were taken and several farmers were randomly interviewed along the route. The final day was spent in roundtable discussions with representatives from the agriculture industry and interviews with technical specialists from international development organizations.

Figure 1. 2009 Zimbabwe Crop Assessment Route
2009 Vegetation Conditions Above-Average, but Estimated Yields Still Below-Average Due to Lack of Inputs and Late-Planted Crops '
In general, seasonal weather during 2008/09 was favorable but rains arrived late for most of the country (2nd dekad of December) and the eastern part of the country experienced a dry spell from the end of January through mid-February. Crop conditions during late-February were observed by the survey team to be dry in the Mashonaland provinces, with late-planted crops in sandy soils showing severe water stress, especially in the eastern part of the country. However, the rains returned in early-March and most of Zimbabwe received normal to above-normal rainfall from March through May.
Seasonal vegetation greenness or vigor as measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the MODIS satellite sensor indicates 2008/09 growing was one of the best years in the past five-years. The analog year, or similar year with similar vegetation health is the 2003/04 growing season and two 2003/04 NDVI temporal profiles from Midlands and Mashonaland East provinces are shown in Figure 2. In summary, the MODIS/NDVI time-series charts in Figure 2 indicate a late start of the season for 2008/09 with vegetation vigor or conditions above-average during mid-season or the critical grain-filling stages from March-April. However, even though the MODIS/NDVI seasonal time-series profiles or vegetation conditions were above-average during the 2008/09 growing season, other non-weather factors greatly reduced potential corn yields in Zimbabwe.