Investigation and comparison of the ice nucleation activity in Fusarium avenaceum and Fusarium acuminatum

n spite of providing some industrial advantages, formation of the natural and artificial ice nuclei is considered as one of the most important causes limiting the plant growth and hence, incurring the economic and ecological issues, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. Hence, studying this feature in heterogeneous and homogeneous particles can considerably help to control the adverse effects of the ice nucleation on the crop production via, for instance, producing the negative mutants to prevent frostbite and hypothermia of plants. The present manuscript aims to investigate the ice nucleation activity in some fungal microorganisms. For this, several Fusarium species were isolated from the suspected plants and identified and then a set of tube nucleation tests was conducted in order to investigate the potential of the ice nucleation activity in the identified species. Based on the obtained results, the drop freezing test was conducted on Fusarium avenaceum and Fusarium acuminatum species, which showed significant ice nucleation activity, using tube nucleation tests. In this regard, variables such as fungal suspension concentration, time duration, temperature and the effect of the heating at higher temperatures prior to cold treatment were considered in order to study the rate and severity of the ice nucleation activity in the above-mentioned fungal species. The obtained results indicated that F. avenaceum presents stronger ice nucleation activity compared with F. acuminatum. In addition, it seems that as the temperature decreases, differences between ice nucleation activities in these microorganisms are reduced. Eventually, at the temperatures below ـ7 ° C, both studied microorganisms showed the severe ice nucleation activity.