North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>]

I am about 45 minutes South of Edmonton, Alberta in zone 3/3b.  If you find a 
good map you can find the tiny community of Pipestone just East of Pigeon 
Lake.

I agree that the damage appears after warm spells.  I think the damage 
probably occurs when we have thawing during the day when our temperature hits 
+10 to 20 C (50 - 68 F, I found my Metric conversion calculator so these are 
accurate temperature comparisons today!) and then refreezing at night. Or 
when we get those 30+ degree changes in less than 24 hours!  Perhaps the 
water doesn't have time to move back out of the cells into the interstitial 
spaces and then the cells rupture when the water they still contain freezes 
and expands.  Or perhaps the repeated movement in and out of the cell 
combined with dehydration/water loss to the air from the cells is not able to 
be replaced because the ground is still frozen and the sap isn't running.

I confess that my degrees are in human biology and that botany was merely an 
interesting required undergrad class!

Sarah



--- On Sun, 3/15/09, R F Hollaus <hollaus@comcast.net> wrote:

> From: R F Hollaus <hollaus@comcast.net>
> Subject: snow for storing scions
> To: "Sarah Kehler Ewing" <skkewing@yahoo.com>
> Date: Sunday, March 15, 2009, 4:55 AM
> #yiv1091696207
> {height:100%;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;}Question
> about your post:
> 
> Then I wonder if you know desication happens more
> at near freezing or at a liquid thawing state than a
> deep freeze.  Did you know that above freezing the
> cells rehydrate again from the liquid moisture between the
> cells and if the action of thawing adversley triggers some
> kind of activity that prevents the cell to dehydrate again?
> 
> I wonder where you are.  We try things in Fairbanks
> Alaska and can always learn from others in similar
> situations.
> 
> Rupert.