Dr. David Francko, a botanist at the University of Alabama, has developed a new spray that allows cold-sensitive plants to survive freezing temperatures.
According to ScienceDaily.com, Freeze-Pruf works like antifreeze for plants. Depending on the species, the product helps plants endure temperatures 2.2 to 9.4 degrees Fahrenheit colder than without the spray. The product lowers the plants’ freezing temperatures and enhances the plants’ natural mechanisms to resist freeze damage. Freeze-Pruf reduces the freezing point of water inside the tissues of the plant by means of a mixture that combines five ingredients in a water-based spray formula. One spray works for four to six weeks, lowering the temperature at which damage first becomes noticeable as well as the temperature that would normally kill the plant.
A freezing chamber put the product to the test. Untreated, plant after plant couldn’t make it below 30 degrees. But plants sprayed with the antifreeze solution survived the freeze with vital structures still intact.
“It’s like moving your whole home landscape about 200 miles farther south,” Dr. Francko said.