Water management of frost‐resistant plant tissues as a consequence of extracellular ice formation

Abstract

AbstractThe formation of extracellular ice within plant tissues is regarded as one of their crucial factors to withstand subzero temperatures without any (biologically irreversible) damage. In this regard, extracellular ice implies two important consequences, which are the dehydration of the tissue cells to prevent intracellular ice formation, which would be fatal for the plant, and the attraction of water towards the freezing site. However, the pattern of ice formation may vary significantly among various types of plants. There might be rather dispersed ice formation distributed in large parts of the plant or localised ice formation at internal surfaces. Within this contribution, the latter‐mentioned case is addressed with a macroscopic modelling approach based on the Theory of Porous Media. The appearing water management is discussed at a representative numerical example.