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Old December 26, 2012   #68
doublehelix
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Central Arkansas
Posts: 190
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Before I planted dozens of TGRC accessions, I would want to know if what happened was just an anomaly. Almost every year I have grown plants there has been something survive a frost and even a few hard freezes. There could be a number of things that caused a small area of protection from freezing in a field or garden. If you want to do serious research, then you need to ask the fundamental question of "what went wrong" and not assume something is unique.

Until you take the variety that survived your freeze and subject several plants to freezing conditions in a controlled environment you won't know if they can consistently survive a freeze. You would need a substantial number of plants and a place where you can accurately control the temperature. You would also need a second variety to use as a control group. You would also need to hold the plants at a set temperature and vary the exposure time. You would also need to conduct this experiment on different age plants.

A research plan might look something like this:

6 week seedlings Group A test plants

32 degrees 1 hour
32 degrees 2 hours
32 degrees 4 hours
32 degrees 8 hours

30 degrees 1 hour
30 degrees 2 hours
30 degrees 4 hours
30 degrees 8 hours

28 degrees 1 hour
28 degrees 2 hours
28 degrees 4 hours
28 degrees 8 hours

6 week seedlings Group B Control plants

32 degrees 1 hour
32 degrees 2 hours
32 degrees 4 hours
32 degrees 8 hours

30 degrees 1 hour
30 degrees 2 hours
30 degrees 4 hours
30 degrees 8 hours

28 degrees 1 hour
28 degrees 2 hours
28 degrees 4 hours
28 degrees 8 hours

If everything dies at 32 degrees you don't have to continue to the next phase of the experiment. There isn't any point in breeding until you have this information.
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