Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.5, 213-221 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 215 also be suppressed (Vitale et al., 2024). Some farmers have also attempted intercropping cotton with other crops, using limited plots to achieve higher utilization rates. Especially in years when land is tight and the climate fluctuates greatly, this kind of "group planting" appears to be more flexible. Ultimately, these methods are not complicated and do not rely on heavy investment. They are developed through the refinement of experience and data. This type of approach is now also classified as "climate-smart" agriculture, which not only focuses on immediate yields but also cares about soil nutrients, ecological resilience, and carbon emission control (Arshad et al., 2021). Figure 1 Electron micrographs of leaf mesophyll of cotton species (TM-1, Zhongmian-16 and Pima4-S) under drought stress and control conditions. The TEM micrograph of leaf mesophyll cells of TM-1, Zhongmian-16, and Pima4-S under control shows intact chloroplasts, well-developed grana (G), mitochondria (MC), starch grains (SG) with smooth cell wall (CW), and plasma membrane (PM). (A, Control and B, drought) TEM micrographs of leaf mesophyll cells of TM-1 show oval shaped chloroplast fewer grana (G), swollen mitochondria (MC) with smooth cell wall (CW); (C, control and D, drought) TEM micrographs of leaf mesophyll cell of Zhongmian-16 maintained elongated shape of chloroplast with less dense matrix of grana (G) raptured cell wall (CW), starch grain (SG), nucleolus present (Nuc), lamella (La) and mitochondria (MC); (E, control and F, drought) TEM micrographs of leaf mesophyll cell of Pima4-S show oval shaped chloroplast fewer grana (G), lamella (La). Scale bars represent 5 µm (Adopted from Hasan et al., 2018) 3.3 Sowing date adjustment and crop layout optimization to mitigate heat stress When encountering a heat wave, sometimes it's not something that can be endured by simply putting in effort, but if you plant wisely, you can still avoid some risks. For instance, slightly moving the sowing time forward or backward to avoid the high temperatures during the flowering period of cotton, or adjusting the planting density and widening the row spacing to make the air more circulating and the distribution of sunlight more reasonable, these methods seem simple but have considerable effects. Especially in years with frequent high temperatures, these "folk remedies" are more direct than complex engineering techniques (Engonopoulos et al., 2021). Of course, it doesn't show results every year. However, based on the field records of the past few seasons, the plots that have made these adjustments have indeed seen more stable yields under extreme weather conditions (Wu et al., 2023; Yang and Zhu, 2025).
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