The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service generates High-Resolution Vegetation Phenology
and Productivity (HR-VPP) products for Europe from 1 January, 2017 onwards (CLMS 2023a;
WEKEO 2021). The phenology related products are derived using information about the
photosynthetically active leaf foliage development stage. We analyse the potential
of integrating the published phenology data, specifically the so-called start of season
date (SOS), into drought and crop condition mapping efforts that are ongoing in Hungary.
This study focuses on the within-plot variability of SOS of the main arable crops
and grasslands at 10 m spatial resolution in 2022. The results indicate that the observed
intensive spring growth of winter cereals is quite homogeneous within plots, while
for maize and sunflower it is not the case. For the latter crops the standard deviation
of SOS can be two weeks or higher, and it is not practical to assign a single date
to rapeseed parcels because the within-plot differences can be extreme. The study
supports the characterization of spring leaf development in Hungary.
