The grass calendar
Grass wakes in May and peaks at the turn of June and July
Every 16 days the satellite gives each jailoo a greenness score. Twenty-five years of scores give the usual season, and the range of good and poor years around it.
Usual green (NDVI) through the year · line: median 2001–2025 · band: middle half of years
Arpa sits high and dry, so its grass never gets as green as Son-Kul or Suusamyr. The month you pick on the map is marked.
Son-Kul, 2001–2025
Son-Kul's grass now greens two weeks earlier. The summer grass is no greener.
In 2001–2010 the south shore turned green around . Since 2016 it turns green around . Temperature records tell the same story: since 1951 the warm grass season on Son-Kul has grown by about a week. Suusamyr and Arpa show no clear shift yet.
Son-Kul · day the grass turns green, each spring
July–August green (NDVI), each summer
An earlier start with the same summer means the young spring grass arrives sooner. A herd that goes up on the old date may meet older grass. Whether that matters for weight gain needs field data, which is where pasture committees come in.
What geospatial data can tell a herder
Six questions a pasture map can answer
When should we go up?
The date the grass greens on your jailoo, each year since 2000, and how this spring compares.
MODIS 250 m every 16 days · Sentinel-2 10 m every 5 days
Is this a good summer?
This summer's green against the usual range, so a poor year shows before the herd goes up and before hay is bought.
NDVI anomaly against 2001–2025
Where is the grass thinning?
Green that fades in rings around camps, wells and winter barns is a classic sign of overgrazing. Sentinel-2 sees it slope by slope.
Sentinel-2 10 m · Landsat back to 1985 · ESA WorldCover
Is the rest working?
Before-and-after maps for pastures rested, rotated, fenced or reseeded, compared with similar slopes that were not.
Landsat and Sentinel-2 time series, matched control plots
Will snow or frost come back?
Snow-free days and frosty summer nights on each pasture, and the warm grass season since 1951 with a view to 2040.
MODIS snow 500 m · ERA5-Land climate grid · 14 climate models
Where is the water?
Rivers and streams traced from the terrain, steep slopes, and the routes between winter, spring and summer pastures.
Copernicus DEM 30 m · 90 m river network · OpenStreetMap
Why KG Labs
We have been mapping Kyrgyzstan's land, water and ice from space for years
The same machinery that tracks a glacier or a forest reads a pasture: decades of free satellite archives, cloud computing, climate grids and careful checks. We publish what fails as well as what works.
What a satellite cannot tell you
- Green is not kilograms. Clipping plots in the field turn greenness into forage per hectare.
- At 250 m one pixel mixes grass, rock and paths. Sentinel-2 at 10 m sharpens it, from 2017 on.
- Clouds and snow hide some dates. Those dates are left out, never guessed.
- Grazing pressure needs herd numbers and routes, which only pasture committees and herders know.
2027 grazing season
Pick a jailoo. We will map it with you.
We are looking for pasture committees, herder groups, farms and programmes to test these maps through one season, in Kyrgyz and Russian.
- Spring: green-up date and move-up calendar for your pastures.
- Every 16 days: a short greenness note, this summer against the usual.
- Autumn: a map of thinning and recovery for your pasture plan.