Do trees freeze?

The short answer is no; Gene Wengert provides full details. February 13, 2001

Q.
I have read in this forum about frozen and partially frozen wood and I don't understand. Do the trees freeze after I fall them or are they frozen now?

Forum Responses
Trees cannot freeze if healthy and above -40 degrees F, roughly.

I suppose it is the sugars that act as antifreeze. The water (actually, the water is really a solution of chemicals) may turn into slush. The secret to not causing damage (most of the time) is that the wood contains a lot of air bubbles. If you took all the air bubbles out of a log, it would be 1.5 times heavier than water! So, as the ice or slush forms and expands as it gets colder (water and ice do this under 3 degrees F), the air bubbles are compressed, allowing room for the "ice" to expand! Neat! Where we get into trouble is when there are no bubbles--sinker logs would be one example and we all know that most sinker logs are worthless.

Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor

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Even in the winter, if the tree is still alive, wouldn't there be some metabolic processes going on in the cell that would produce a certain amount of heat?

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Perhaps such heat could be measured in a lab, but the chemical reactions (metabolism) would be so slow that the heat would be insignificant. As a rule of thumb, for each 20 degrees F cooler, the reaction rate is one-half as fast.

Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor