Your probably looking at a long term experiment-not sure if that particular one would make any difference or not.....I think the best way would be to raise palms from seed or get larger plants and select the most cold hardy.

I believe something to this effect was tried with T.Tesan in China....selecting and cultivating the most cold hardy plants.
I can't speak to the effectiveness of this-there is so much variability in Trachy
hardiness anyway it may be hard to decide what actually made a difference.

It is already a known fact that palms sense each others proximity and their fronds behave a certain way based on how close they are situated near each other.

Exactly what type of behavior do the fronds exhibit in this scenario? How do they sense each other? If it's fact it should be well documented. Trees in forests race to the top of the forest canopy to gain as much sunlight exposure as possible.

Some trees grow quickly in shade of other trees; some don't and die. Pines, for example, need full sun. They can't compete in a hardwood forest. Hardwoods can grow in more shade and can compete with pines, so eventually take over.

As far as hardiness in palms, I think there is some natural variablity (but probably only a few degrees). And this variability is dependent upon the plant's genes. I'm skeptical that a palm can increase its hardiness by being closer to another palm of similar species but different sex.

I am aware that Trachycarpus can exhibit different sex flowers. Had that happen to mine -- first they were all male -- then one season it got both male and female flowers and bore seed. Whether it was a matter of age, or of being near another palm, I have no idea. There was no other female nearby; just another male.

Palms are interesting though, that's for sure.

Will it trigger some type of survival response that gives the palms even a slight increase in hardiness just to reproduce?

Cue "Also Sprach Zaruthstra" from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Dave: I will post the excerpt regarding palms behavior and proximity the next time I come across it. Speaking of establishment and dominance, one of the major hurdles my customers will have is keeping the English Ivy away from the palms. This stuff runs rampant all over Long Island and to me is the most "parasitic" vegetation I've ever seen. It always shocks me when I see that neighbors have let the Ivy take over and engulf large trees-I'm talking about trees well over 100 feet tall. Then they wonder with amazement why these trees come down years later in a storm doing extensive damage to their property.

Jim: My whole thought process on that goes way way way back remembering my biology and earth science classes in HS, survival and evolution of a species go hand in hand-be it a plant or animal. Those that survive adapt, those that can't go extinct. I guess that's why a Trachy can serve as a male and female if it stands alone. Anyway, thanks for bringing up that study. I will try to find out more about it online.

Jack: LOL good one! :)

This post was edited by Kokomo-JB on Tue, Feb 19, 13 at 8:48

I am wondering if palms are remnants of a more humid and warmer epoch. My guess is that palms over time have not developed much more cold-hardiness and instead have been the victims of a cooling Earth. For instance, if I look at the Sabal palmetto, my guess is that the Ice Age pushed their range further south and as the climate slowly warmed after the glaciers retreated, they regained their former territory. I don't believe that they developed more cold-hardiness and extended their range further North. I think we are seeing this as we speak. As local climates just on the periphery of the native habitat for Sabal palmetto, warm up to pre-ice age temperatures, the palms can expand their range and if the climate contracts again, most will perish but a few may survive in isolated pockets producing a slightly more-cold hardy sub-species, but nothing dramatic. Of course all of this is not relevant to true tropicals. Just a thought.

Not really on topic with the original post, but a tidbit to add to cliff98's post.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Curious Distribution of the Needle Palm

I think the first 2 numbers they quote are actually -20F and -24F.

Hi
Temp tolerance in plants is a fascinating subject.. I live in s. florida so always right on the edge .lol Freezing is easy to understand because there is distinct tissue damage ,frost on the other hand may or may not cause damage . Most all palms will tolerate short periods into the upper 20's Tthough I've got a couple that nose dive in the 50's these will also decline above 90.
I find it interesting on average that lowland tropicals will tolerate MUCH more cold than upland species will heat
The results are very similar
Interesting that palms never adapted a deciduous nature as many other types of trees, as well as vegetative reproduction,frost tolerant seeds or even airborne disperal.
Maybe they are an evolutionary dead end?? gary

Gary, I think palms will continue to adapt slightly over time, but I think you are right about them being an evolutionary dead-end. I think there is only so much color, drought tolerance, cold tolerance, heat tolerance, fruit production, etc. that can be bred into a plant and most of the plants with the most success on these ends are fruiting vegetables and I think that is due to how quickly they turn over, meaning going from seed to setting seed in the same season. That high rate of turn produces a lot of variability. Some palms don't flower until the end of their life which can be 30 or 40 years. That dramatically limits how much genetic variation a single species can go through.

They have been around for a long time though-maybe they are smarter than we are....they stay where it s warm(-: we are the ones that keep trying to drag them into the cold- )-:

Evolution takes millions of years. Humans, trying to get palms to become cold hardier has been going on for maybe 300 years. Cycads have been around since the dinosaurs with little natural change. So enthusiasts like us without a collective dedicated program will get our minor successes here and there as already proven in new hybrids. In my opinion, palms can be made to live anywhere in the world via genetic decoding. It would take a lot of money and I'm sure the current focus is being spent on getting plant species that feed humans to grow and yield at phenomenal rates and locations. Truth probably is, getting into the DNA coding of palms and turning on the right genes will allow palms to adapt to any situation. They just need to study the DNA of flora that survives in zones 2-6 and find out which genes play a crucial role and locate the same genes in palms. From a business point of view, I bet the demand would be there worldwide to more than cover the cost of research & development. I guess the problem would be, that once they get sold, unless they are sterile, nurseries would produce generation after generation thus killing the long term profit for the original developer. Just a guess.

Finding a natural form of anti-freeze would probably be the first thing to happen....
palms are just so well adapted to where they grow-the structure of them just does not lend itself to prolonged cold and moisture though...

Everything rides on that little growth point right at the top....even native plants show a lot of damage here in super cold winters-don't have a lot of
hope for palms here,the foliage is just not made to handle cold well-and yet,when you think about it-Fortunei(some Trachys)holding up in single digits and even surviving sub-zero temps is truly incredible!!!!

Remember, most palms are dioecious (have both male and female flowers) so this theory would not affect these plants.

I'm sorry but there is not a global demand for cold hardy palm trees. Do a google key word search on "cold hardy palms" to see how many unique searches are done on this phrase worldwide each month using google. There are less than 10,000. We are a niche group of people.

The Human Genome Project cost $3BN. I would expect decoding multiple species of plants and trees would cost the same. That was funded primarily through public dollars. No company is going to pony up that cash to bring a cold hardy palm to the market. Even if the cost was 1/10th of that, $300 million, no one is going to spend that much money. I work in branding and most well-known brands in the United States do not spend anything near that amount to market their products and many of these products have super-high household penetration like toilet paper or shampoo. Heck even if the cost were $30 million, that still is probably too high of a hurdle for most investors. The NPV time horizon would probably be low, perhaps as long as 10 years, because unless the plants were modified to be sterile, within a decade, people could start breeding them on their own. IP would just increase the initial investment, but lengthen the time horizon, but time horizons have little influence on the viability of project due to higher up-front costs.

I don't think genetically modified palms are something we can look forward to and in the absence of that, seasonally protecting our palms is the best alternative to buying new every year.

Hey Cliff:

While we seem to agree that unless made sterile, the investor would never recover and see a profit due to nurseries breeding their own specimens.

Where I respectfully disagree with you is the demand and ROI. Going by internet searches is not a true indication of demand-especially when it comes to something unheard of like palms living in the Northern regions. Most folks just write it off as it cannot happen so why search? Take my immediate area (Long Island, NYC, NJ & Costal CT)...we've experienced a "storm of the Century" the past 2 years in a row. Most of the damage (not counting tidal surge) was caused by down trees. As a matter of fact, we lost power for well over 3 weeks due to all the down trees. I had a crew from New Orleans in my backyard working on wires and I got to talk to them. They said the damage on Long Island was worse than Katrina-from their perspective, due to all the down trees. They busted poles, took down wires, blocked roads and damaged houses. Trust me, because of the business I'm launching, I got to talk to some politicians in Nassau County and they said that they would welcome palm trees...not just because they are beautiful to look at but because they wont cause nearly as much damage from a hurricane that our native trees cause. Also take into account the commercial value as to attract consumers...malls, car dealerships, shoping strips. Catering Halls, golf courses, beaches & Beach Clubs, Country Clubs and parks...just to name a few. The demand will be there, most people don't consider it a reality so why bother searching. Regardless, I'm launching my company in two weeks so that will be putting my money where my mouth is. :)

This post was edited by Kokomo-JB on Thu, Feb 21, 13 at 13:21

In my opinion Palm hardiness can be increased and has been happening by natural selection for 1000s of years. Being a pollinator of hybrid palms you can pick and choose. There has been a project going on at Kew royal gardens for awhile storing plant / palm DNA you can check here.

http://apps.kew.org/dnabank/homepage.html

Trees also communicate to one another. Here is one instance you can google it to find many more about Trees and electricity.

Grants Pass, Ore. (AP) - Physicist Ed Wagner says he has found evidence that trees talk to each other in a language he calls W-waves.

"If you chop into a tree, you can see that adjacent trees put out an electrical pulse," said Wagner. "This indicates that they communicated directly."

"Explaining the phenomenon, Wagner pointed to a blip on a strip chart recording of the electrical pulse.

Erik

Wow! That's absolutely wild Erik. It sort of jives with what I heard about palms sensing each others presence when planted near each other. Pretty cool stuff.

You might enjoy the book "The secret life of plants"

Here is another book you might be interested in. You can read it online Charles Darwin Orgin of Species. Here is the chapter on Hybrids. You can read the whole book by going back to the home page. http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-08.html

There is also a guy who had patented a device used to pollinate with electricity forcing the plant to accept the pollen.