“Anything which is wet will freeze. Anything which freezes will die. “
Baloney. The ice acts as an insulator that keeps the temperature near 32 deg. Ice is used all throughout the south to insulate fruit crops.
large part myth in that. Ice actually doesn’t stay at 32. It may start at 32 but anything frozen gets colder as the outside temperature gets colder.
Actually, growers cover their fruit trees to avoid this from happening because the ice freezes the fruit and that fruit is dead. You can’t sell frozen fruit unless it was already harvested. Of course, typically you don’t have fruit on your trees in December so it’s not a big worry.
In Florida, they will do anything to keep the trees from freezing if there is a late chill. They actually put parafin fire cans under each tree to try to keep the temperature up. Frozen fruit is no joke when you only get one harvest a year.