There is no organic product that will ever be able to compete in cost with sodium or calcium chloride. Actually, anything that dissolves in water will lower its freezing point and consequently melt ice. You could spread sugar on your driveway and it would melt the ice but its not cost effective to do so. The amount the freezing point is lowered is proportional to the amount of substance that dissolves in water. Based on this behavior, it is also hard to beat sodium chloride which is freely soluble in water and far more so than most (but not all) organics.

DNA bar codes? Isn't that a little creepy? Hmmm. I guess once the genes that determine hardiness are identified (maybe they already have been?) this kind of thing could be used to more accurately assess hybrids that are developed to improve cold tolerance.

The high tech gadget I'd like to have is a soil analysis gizmo that will tell not only the PH of my soil but the nutrient content (so I can do dozens of soil tests instead of 2 or 3). I think they make something like this, at least for PH, but they're not very good (yet).

tree oracle,
that's a really neat piece of knowledge you shared w/ us, so thanks much for that. I would, however, caution against using 'never'('not ever' etc.) is a response concerning future technology.
best,
mindy