Thermal regulation of crop canopies:

• Transpiration is the primary physiological mechanism for canopy cooling in crop plants.
• Vaporization of water from internal mesophyll surfaces through open stomata absorbs a massive amount of latent heat of vaporization (approximately $2.45\text{ MJ/kg}$ of water evaporated), lowering canopy temperatures by $2-8^\circ\text{C}$ below ambient air temperature.

Kharif oilseed intercrops in cotton:

• Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is a wide-spaced ($90-120\text{ cm}$), slow early-growing Kharif crop.
• Soybean and groundnut are short-stature, compact Kharif leguminous oilseeds that fit ideally into cotton inter-row spaces (e.g., $1:1$ or $1:2$ systems), suppressing weeds, fixing nitrogen, and maximizing land equivalent ratio (LER) without competing for light.
• Mustard and safflower are Rabi winter season crops and cannot be co-sown with Kharif cotton.

Crop adaptation to moisture stress in dryland zones:

• Rapeseed-mustard and chickpea are deep-rooted, drought-hardy Rabi crops with low water requirements that thrive efficiently on conserved residual profile soil moisture in rainfed and dryland regions of semi-arid India.
• Crops like potato, berseem, and sugarcane have high water consumption and require frequent, assured irrigation, making them completely unsuited for dryland agriculture.