Leaving my car in Houston for months at a time while I venture to Austin for school never really has a positive impact on my car. When I get back to Houston, excited to drive my car that I haven’t seen in so long, I get in, try to start it up, and it magically works. The months apart should leave the car cold and forgotten, but antifreeze prevents water from freezing while in the engine by lowering water’s freezing point. This may not be too impressive in Texas, but the same (usually) applies to cars up north as well.

A similar situation in plants could occur if my entire family leaves the area for a while in the winter months. If we did not make arrangements for someone to cover our garden with insulating blankets, the plants in our garden would become rigid and stiff, and possibly die. However, recent plant technology has led us to the invention of Freeze-Pruf, which, put simply, could be called “the antifreeze for plants.”

One application of Freeze-Pruf can last up to 4 to 6 weeks. It works by lowering the freezing point of the water in plants by 2.2-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit, effectively lowering the temperature at which plant damage and plant death occurs. Also, the plant can remain viable at temperatures where the plant itself is frozen.

Freeze-Pruf could potentially save time for farmers and gardeners, while also saving money by preventing the death of their plants. The antifreeze not only lowers the temperature that water freezes at in the plant, but it also strengthens the plant’s existing mechanisms to prevent freezing. The ingredients include a cell wall strengthener, antifreeze-like substance found in animals, another substance that lowers the freezing point of plant cells by dehydrating it. The best times to use Freeze-Pruf are late fall and early spring, before the two extreme seasons of the year hit.

Discussion Question: Since Freeze-Pruf has just recently been developed, would you trust it enough to use it on your garden or would you continue to use traditional methods of keeping your plants alive in the cold until further research on Freeze-Pruf has been conducted?

Article (with video): http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1105-antifreeze_for_your_plants.htm