Freeze Tolerance And Avoidance In Plants

Understanding and improving the cold hardiness of plants has been an endeavour that has been pursued since the onset of studying plant biology. Cold acclimation is a multigenic, quantitative trait that involves biochemical and structural changes that affect the physiology of a plant. The type and form of freezing injury experienced by plants varies with species and their degree of freezing tolerance and/or ability to avoid freezing. Advances in biotechnology have allowed us to move beyond structure and physiology to identifying and understanding the role of specific genes and proteins. The present chapter reviews our current understanding of freezing tolerance and avoidance and emphasizes that essential to the beneficial use of modern biotechnology is a thorough understanding of plant biology in relation to cold hardiness. The use of plant biotechnology grounded in an understanding of plant biology has great potential for increasing plant productivity in a rapidly changing climate.