Well, I'm totally guessing about the environment there, since I know nothing about the area, but you can actually scald plants by watering in the heat of the day in the hottest part of summer even here. Without shade, you can scald plants in a greenhouse, even with the plastic or glass between you and the sun, if it's in the summer heat. Outside in the blazing sun is WAY worse. The water on the leaves heats up and acts like a magnifying glass for the sun and ta-da––you've got scald. Ground watering is the best for these situations, or if you're using sprinklers, watering fairly early in the morning so it has time to dry a bit before the full strength of the mid-day sun hits it. But as I said, I don't know that area or its idiosyncracies.



Sprinkling does kind of help to dissipate the heat, on the other hand, as it evaporates, and helps to kind of temper the extreme heat of the air by "wetting the air" in a microclimate around the plants. But my guess is that it's so dry and hot where the OP is that this technique would be kind of like trying to cool your yard with a car air conditioner. In a drought situation here, the plants just can't take the heat no matter how much you water the ground. I figure he faces this type of plant stress all the time. So gardeners in more arid climates ––well––they have to approach almost everything a little differently––with shade cloth, for instance. Someone in this thread mentioned that they even sell shade cloth in the wal marts out there. Not here. That's a specialty item you have to get from greenhouse suppliers, usually.



Okay the truth is that in a climate that's very dry, the water you sprinkle might evaporate so fast that scald would not be a problem. But here, it is an issue if you water at the wrong time of day in the heat of summer.

How's that for meandering all around the fact that I have no clue?