Evaluation of freezing injury in temperate fruit trees

Abstract

Freezing is a major environmental stress limiting the geographical distribution, growth, and productivity of temperate fruit trees. The extent of freezing injury in the trees depends on the rate at which the temperature decreases, the minimum temperature reached, and the duration of the freezing conditions. The ability to tolerate freezing temperatures under natural conditions varies greatly among fruit tree species, cultivars, and tissues. Freezing injury must be precisely evaluated to reliably predict the winter survival and productivity of the trees in specific regions, to screen for tolerant species and cultivars, and to develop cultural strategies that reduce freezing stress. Various methods are used to evaluate freezing injury in temperate fruit trees under field and artificial conditions, including visual evaluation of tissue discoloration, thermal analysis, determination of electrolyte leakage, and triphenyl tetrazolium chloride reduction analysis. In this review, we describe the most frequently used experimental procedures for evaluating freezing injury.

Cold Stress, Freezing Adaptation, Varietal Susceptibility of Olea europaea L.: A Review

“…Freeze test under controlled conditions and several other methods (electrolyte leakage -EL-, differential thermal analysis -DTA-, triphenyl tetrazolium chloride -TC-reduction, electrical impedance analysis, fractal spectrum analysis, chlorophyll fluorescence analysis, stomatal density and biochemical enzymes activity and sugars, phospholipids, proline, phenols) have been used to assess LT 50 impact on several varieties. EL is an indicator of membrane stability and is the most widely used test to estimate the stress-induced injury in plant tissues and to detect the cold tolerance of plants [ 111 , 158 , 159 ]. In general, LT 50 always indicated in all experiments that CA plants had lower LT 50 values than NA plants and as LT 50 widely varied in relation to the organ.…”

“…Furthermore, the duration and rate of artificial freezing can potentially affect the extent of the injury and the results obtained under artificial conditions do not always reflect the response or the re-growth of a species or cultivar under natural conditions. In addition, nucleation temperatures are lower in artificial freeze protocols than those observed under natural conditions, and therefore these conditions are not always reliable [ 63 , 120 , 158 ]. In addition, in vitro cultures techniques were used as laboratory freezing tests [ 114 , 163 ].…”

Field plus lab experiments help identify freezing tolerance and associated genes in subtropical evergreen broadleaf trees: A case study of Camellia oleifera

“…Various methods have been used to evaluate freezing tolerance in temperate fruit trees under field or lab conditions (Yu and Lee, 2020). Since natural conditions involve many factors and temperature usually cannot be controlled, field experiments alone cannot directly identify the effects of freezing stresses.…”

Frost hardiness of apple generative buds during dormancy

“…Differential thermal analysis, electrical impedance spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, electrolyte leakage measurement as indirect laboratory methods can provide information about the differences between genotypes from the aspect of frost hardiness of them (Quamme, 1976(Quamme, , 1991Quamme et al, 1972Quamme et al, , 1982Ceccardi et al, 1995, Kang et al, 1998Pearce, 2001;Salazar-Gutiérrez et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2019;Yu & Lee 2020;Kaya et al, 2020).…”