Fig. 1.

Freezing survival of Arabidopsis plants transferred to sucrose solutions for 2 d. (A) Plants from 0 mM or 40 mM sucrose in 21 °C (warm) with a 16 h photoperiod (light). (B) Plants from 0 mM or 40 mM sucrose in 4 °C (cold) either with a 16 h photoperiod (light) or in continuous dark. Plants grown for 2 d in soil in either the warm or cold environment were included as controls. Statistics: (A) More plants survived freezing to temperatures between –1.5 °C and –3.0 °C after 2 d in 40 mM sucrose than in 0 mM sucrose (χ² tests gave P <0.001 and P <0.01 in replicate experiments). (B) More plants survived in 40 mM sucrose in the dark than in the other two treatments in the dark and fewer survived than in the three treatments in the light (χ² test gave P <0.001 for all these comparisons).