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clms_vlcc_main-crop-emergence_europe_10m_yearly_v1·dataset

When Europe's main crops first sprouted each year (Copernicus)

CLMS VLCC Main Crop Emergence (CPMCE) Europe 10m yearly V1
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Records the date the main annual crop's first leaves unfolded in each field, given as a year-and-day-of-year code. Only fields classed as annual cropland get a value; others carry quality flags.

How it's made. Produced yearly from 2017 onward from satellite vegetation time series, by the EU's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service at 10-metre resolution across Europe's 38 countries, including French overseas territories.

How & where you'd use it. Helps track planting and germination timing across Europe, useful for agricultural monitoring, yield forecasting, and studying climate effects on crops.

What's measured

CLMSCopernicusEuropeRasterLand coverCroplandMain CropEmergenceCPLand use

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2017-01-01 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

The Main Crop Emergence (CPMCE) dataset provides information on the emergence date of the main annual crop growing season for each classified annual cropland pixel. Emergence is defined as the moment when the first leaves of the crop unfold. The date is expressed in YYDOY format, where YY represents the last two digits of the year and DOY represents the day of the year (1–366). This layer is only generated for pixels classified as annual cropland; permanent crops and locations without a detectable main season are assigned dedicated quality flags. This dataset is provided annually starting with 2017 in 10-metre rasters (fully conformant with the EEA reference grid) in 100 × 100 km tiles covering the EEA-38 countries. The HRL Main Crop Emergence product is part of the European Union's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. This dataset includes data from the French Overseas Territories (DOMs).

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["clms_vlcc_main-crop-emergence_europe_10m_yearly_v1"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.