Abstract
Many important crops are indigenous to subtropical climate and are, in general, highly sensitive to(low or nonfreezing temperatures ranged between 0 and 12℃. In northern climates, plants encounter occasionally unusual chill weather in the early growing season, causing various types of injury. To improve the productivity of crops in the northern areas, it is important to understand the mechanisms of injury and adaptation to chilling temperatures. The phenomena of chilling injury occurring in the field exhibit complicated aspects due to the composite environmental factors including temperature, light and water relation, and also due to some biological factors including developmental stages and tissue differentiations. All of these factors are mutually interrelated with respect to the mode of injury and diferences in the tolerance to cold. In this article, I will discuss about the possible relationship between those physical and biological factors and the mode of injury. Explanation will be given to the mechanism of cold-adaptation of plants on bases of fluidity of membrane lipids, primary membrane transports and cell homeostasis, water ralation and suppression or elimination of the formation of oxygen radicals.
