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Freezing Live Plant Tissue for Use Later |
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Is it possible to freeze plants, thaw and plant them? It appears
that freezing plants or live plant tissue can be tricky and fairly
complicated. It might be possible to freeze plants, clones for example,
if you want a particular variety for later use.
Plants generally go through a two-phase freezing process. First the
extra-cellular water content freeze once temperature reach between 23
to 14ºF (Varies by plant type). The extra-cellular water is (water outside the cells) in the
plant's tissue. Then under the right conditions such as extreme cold
(-4 to -40ºF *varies by plant type), the intra-cellular water content would freeze. The
intra-cellular water content is water within the cells.
If allowed to freeze slowly, plants intra-cellular water content will
freeze into ice crystals and kill the plants. It's widely believed that
it's the ice crystals that is responsible for the plant's death and not
the process of freezing them.
Researchers suggested freezing plants rapidly to prevent formation of
ice crystals in the intra-cellular water content. Rapid freezing such
as liquid nitrogen is recommended for freezing live plant tissue. This
method is not 100% effective.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 February 2005 )
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