The note is written in the same style and with the same sincerity that sounded in Mark Twain’s story “How I edited an agricultural newspaper.”

Continuation of the topic “Antifreeze from dried fruits”, but with the main question: WHY?

In one of these notes, I conducted a certain classification of fruits according to the degree of their production of propylene glycol (antifreeze) during the drying process. As a means of resisting fruit cells from drying out. Mango was in the first place then. Then cherries, grapes, peaches. Pineapples turned out to be the weakest releasing antifreeze when drying.

A couple of weeks ago I bought dried cranberries, bananas and other fruits. The frost resistance corresponded to the degree of saturation of dried fruits with propylene glycol.

What has been discovered?

Again, the pineapples froze, turned into almost ice cubes. But they are not the only ones. The cranberries are also frozen very thoroughly. And also bananas.

And that’s when a thought occurred to me. This means that pineapples, bananas and cranberries will grow naturally in PERMANENTLY MOIST SOIL. Due to the conditions of their habitat, they do not lack water, and therefore they (their cells) have a poorly developed ability to resist drying by synthesizing antifreeze (which is also an anti-drying agent). Therefore, when drying fruits, the cells secrete little or no antifreeze, an anti–drying agent.

Cranberries are known to grow in swamps. There is always enough moisture there. Banana and pineapple also grow well only in moist soil, and therefore they “don’t think about drying out.” And grapes, cherries, and peaches grow on trees in different climatic zones, where there are, if not droughts, then breaks with rains. And the fruits have adapted to such troubles. It follows that edible cacti should be champions in the synthesis of propylene glycol, they “know” well what a lack of water is!

As you can see, the hypothesis is logical and seems to explain the differences between different plants well.

But then an alarming thought struck me: MANGO is also a tropical and moisture–loving plant! So, why exactly did it turn out to be the champion of antifreeze synthesis in my experiments?

Possible answers:

Mango dries out very slowly (the cells have a thicker and less permeable membrane for water vapor, for example) and therefore MANAGES to start intensive production of “anti-drying agent”. Other moisture-loving plants simply dry out very quickly and the process of propylene glycol synthesis is slow in them, therefore they “do not have time”!

The other answer, though fantastic, is much more interesting. Perhaps, mango got into different climatic conditions during the life of THIS SPECIES, where there was a lot and little water, and therefore it DEVELOPED a mechanism of resistance to drying.That is, perhaps, at the dawn of its appearance, this species did NOT grow in the humid tropics, but in a certain middle zone, and therefore its cells developed a mechanism of resistance to drought. Then it spread to the tropics, where it took root BETTER. But the genetic memory of the species HAS BEEN PRESERVED. Or vice versa, it grew initially in the tropics, then gradually migrated to drier latitudes and, as an adaptive mechanism to a new ecological niche, developed an anti-drying synthesis!

That’s what the Marktwain’s Agricultural newspaper turned out to be.

Faciant meliora potentes.

22 IV 2025