• Jian, Jianhua
  The Graduate School University of Maine
  

Container-grown seedlings are widely used in North America to enhance productivity of forests. Winter damage during outdoor storage causes significant losses of container-grown seedlings in tree nurseries. Cold tolerance of roots is the least understood but potentially a very important aspect related to overwinter damage. In order to investigate root cold tolerance, the first objective of this study was to evaluate the reliability of a quick method for detecting freezing damage in roots as well as shoots. Soil temperatures likely influence root cold tolerance. Therefore the second objective of the study was to evaluate the relationship between soil temperature with development of cold tolerance in roots, and examine how the development of root cold tolerance and shoot cold tolerance differ.