Chilling stress in plants

ABSTRACT: Chilling temperatures (1–10?C) lead to numerous physiological disturbances in the cells of chilling-sensitiveplants and result in chilling injury and death of tropical and subtropical plants, e.g., many vegetable species. The literature review shows that the exposure of chilling-sensitive plants to low temperatures causes disturbances in all physiological processes – water regime, mineral nutrition, photosynthesis, respiration and metabolism. Inactivation of metabolism, observed at chilling of chilling-sensitive plants is a complex function of both temperature andduration of exposure. Response of plants to low temperature exposure is associated with a change in the rate of gene transcription of a number of low molecular weight proteins.The review analyzes historical aspects in the development of ideas about the nature of chilling damage of chilling sensitive plants and direction of modern research. Based on the authors’ own research and the literature data, theconcept of cold damage was proposed, which highlighted the leading role of oxidative stress in the induction ofstress response.