What Makes Frost a Killer?
Every spring the Growers Mineral, Corp. sales team receives questions about using Growers Mineral Solutions (GMS) to lessen the effects of frost on early season vulnerable crops. This usually occurs when a Canadian cold air mass arrives unexpectantly. In the Spring of 2023 after discussing the frost issue with several sales people an article “What Makes Frost a Killer?” appeared on www.dtnpf.com on 4/3/2023.
This article discussed in some detail how frost injures fresh growing plant tissue. Also, the author lists the various parameters that are necessary to create damage to the plant tissue. A section of this article we believe is most helpful in understanding how GMS may influence healthy plant tissue in a way that helps lessen the amount of frost damage. The following are direct quotes from this article:
Here are a few notable ways that plants can survive temperatures below freezing.
1. We deal with ice on roadways and sidewalks by spreading salt on the ice. Plants can do something a little similar. By accumulating more dissolvable solids like proteins, sugars and other minerals, they can create their own slurry that lowers the freezing point of water by sometimes several degrees.
2. Plants can create “anti-freeze” proteins and push them to the cell walls or excrete them to limit the ability of ice crystals to attach to the leaf or stem surfaces.
3. Some plants can create proteins called “dehydrins” that bind to water molecules and make it more difficult for water to align itself in a crystalline structure that is associated with freezing.
4. They can alter their lipid composition in their fluids to make it more viscous, again making it more difficult for water to form crystalline structures that results from freezing.
5. They can generate a little bit of heat. Though it is not like animals, plants also consume some of the sugars they eat to perform specific functions for growth and development. That consumption generates heat, just like it does for us. When you work hard, you get hot. Plants can do a little of that as well.
The Growers Mineral, Corp. sales team that have the most experience with this use of GMS usually have producers apply 1 to 3 gallons per acre of GMS ahead of the frost event in an attempt to insure absorption of the product before the frost event. All GMS sales team members have picked up their own “little bag of tricks” that they learned from their customers over their years of experience. So, anyone interested in using GMS for a frost event please contact your local GMS sales representative or Growers Mineral, Corp. in Milan, Ohio.
This is an excerpt from the Spring Growers Solution (2024) written by Jim Halbeisen, Growers Director of Research & Education.
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