Freezing in non-acclimated oats. II: Thermal response and histology of recovery in gradual and rapidly frozen plants

Freezing in winter cereals is a complex phenomenon that can affect various plant tissues differently. To better understand how freezing affects specific tissue in the over wintering organ (crown) of winter cereal crops, non-acclimated oats (Avena sativa L.) were gradually frozen to −3 °C and tissue damage during recovery was compared to plants that had been supercooled to −3 °C and then frozen suddenly. Percentage of total water frozen, was the same whether crowns were frozen suddenly or gradually although the rate of freezing was considerably different. For example, all available water froze within 3 h in suddenly frozen crowns but it took more than 15 h for all available water to freeze in gradually frozen crowns. When plants were suddenly frozen, cells in the apical meristem were disrupted and apparently killed. In these plants re-growth was limited or non-existent. In contrast, the apical region of plants that were slowly frozen appeared undamaged but extensive vessel plugging was observed in cells of the lower crown, possibly from accumulation of phenolics or from microbial proliferation. These histological observations along with the calorimetric analysis suggested that the apical region was killed by intracellular freezing when frozen suddenly while the crown core was damaged by a process, which either induced production of putative phenolic compounds by the plant and/or permitted what appeared to be microbial proliferation in metaxylem vessels.