A new agricultural innovation from Washington State University may solve an ancient predicament: how to protect crop plants from cold damage at bud break. As spring brings warmer weather, plants wake up from dormancy and begin the processes of growth and flowering. But one cold night can kill those buds before they have a chance to flower and fruit. What’s needed are tiny baby blankets that shield those emerging buds from frost. And it’s precisely an insulating coating that researchers at Washington State University have developed and are in the process of commercializing. WSU’s Xiao Zhang, Matt Whiting and their colleagues Qin Zhang and Changki Mo are utilizing cellulose nanocrystals, CNCs, to protect grape, cherry and other flowering crop plants during frost events. Cellulose, the most common polymer on the planet, is a remarkable substance with myriad useful properties. Zhang and colleagues write in a recent paper that CNCs are stronger than steel in a strength-to-weight face off, capable of being drawn into thin film-like layers and, best of all, are super insulative. In a recent field study, the researchers concluded that a single CNC application “improves cold-hardiness of sweet cherry and grape buds by about 2–4 °C compared to non-treated buds.” That thin protective layer is just enough to keep baby buds snug until the cold snap gives way to the warmer spring weather which triggered the new growth in the first place. Whiting, a horticultural physiologist, was visiting with Zhang, a chemical engineer, about something unrelated, when Zhang showed him the thermal-property data on CNCs. Whiting says he mentioned that the substance might be used to reduce frost damage and Zhang replied, “Oh, is that a problem?” In fact, it is a huge problem all over the world. Citrus in Florida, almonds and other crops in California, coffee in Brazil, apples and pears in Portugal and Washington State–all are susceptible to frost damage, one of agriculture’s biggest killers. While the direct loss of a crop due to cold damage can be in the billions of dollars, the knock-on effects are even worse: loss of a crop means the loss of jobs for pickers, packers, processors, and retailers. A report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says that “in the USA, there are more economic losses to frost damage than to any other weather-related phenomenon.” Source - https://www.freshplaza.com