Research biologist alleges damage to trees from snow-making additive - TV website report

A snowHead

Snowmax, a biological additive used to boost the production of artificial snow, is reportedly at the centre of attention by Utah State University. One of their biology professors, Jon Takemoto, has reportedly alleged that Snowmax threatens a root-associated fungi that plants depend on to process nutrients and water. His allegation is not quoted directly in the report. Snowmax deny that their product causes damage.

This report from ksl.com.

The university is now set to undertake field trials, having reportedly achieved negative results from the product in greenhouse experiments.

[Note: I recall Snowmax appearing on the market a long time ago - at a guess, 15 years. Apparently it has been extensively used in Utah over the past 5 years.]

Would any biologist care to comment?

A snowHead

David Goldsmith, not a biologist but hopefully on topic. In Austria they are very strict about such things and I believe there are rules that snowmaking machines use just water and air/oxygen. I believe additives are also banned in Italy and several Swiss Cantons.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I wonder if they use this stuff at Whistler? Cause the trees there seem to be doing just fine.

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A Plant Scientist Writes:

(Sorry, this will be quite long)

This is the scientific position, so far as I can trace it.

1. “Snomax” is an ice-nucleation additive derived from the bacterium Pseudomonas syringiae – a bacterium that is prevalent in nature, growing naturally on the surfaces of plants (leaves, fruit etc), and essentially harmless to plants. These bacteria produce a surface protein that has ice-nucleating properties.
2. It is not entirely clear from the information provided by the manufacturers of Snomax whether the formulation they provide is the purified protein, or bacterial cells expressing the protein on their surface. Their claim is that they grow P. syringiae in sterile fermenter culture, and then the cultures are filtered to separate the slurry containing the ice-nucleating material from the medium. From this, I think that the product probably contains whole bacterial cells.
3. The slurry is (i) freeze-dried and (ii) irradiated. If there are any live cells left at the end of this process, there won’t be very many. It is this freeze-dried and irradiated solid that is resuspended in water for snowmaking. My guess is that it principally consist of dead bacterial cells.

Now, the potential problem arises because Pseudomonas produces a class of small peptides (mini-proteins) called “cyclic lipodepsinonapeptides" (CLPs for short). There are two classes of these, small ones (Molecular mass = 1200 Daltons) and large ones (2500 Daltons) (The “dalton is the unit of molecular mass: 1 hydrogen atom has a mol. mass of 1).

The smaller of these two peptides has anti-fungal activity. – This is probably of considerable benefit to plants on which Pseudomonas grows as a natural commensal, since it will help protect the plant against fungal infection. These compounds are also being trialled as potential biocontrolling agents for protecting crops from pathogenic fungal infection.

Not all fungi that infect plants are harmful, however, and many plants (especially tree species) form “mycorrhizal” associations: a symbiotic relationship between a soil fungus and a tree root. The fungus grows around the roots of the tree and helps it to assimilate minerals and other nutrients from the soil. In return, the fungus is provided with sugars and other compounds made by the plant.

What the authors of the press release are claiming is that CLPs have antifungal activity against the fungi that form beneficial symbiotic associations with tree roots, and that there is potential for damage to trees growing in ski areas if these peptides are (i) present in snowmaking sprays and (ii) survive to penetrate the soil to a point where they may impact on the symbiotic associations themselves.

Unfortunately, the press releases (from Jon Takemoto, at Utah State University) give very little information about the experiments that have been done. One report says:

“Grad student Swasey’s lab tests of SnoMax indicate the presence of CLPs, which inhibited the growth of every ectomycorrhizal species she tested. Because “ectos” are the only species of root fungi that can be grown apart from plants in a lab, Swasey is performing similar tests in a greenhouse on “endos” or endomycorrhizal fungi collected from alpine locations.”

This might mean that (i) Snomax inhibited the growth of one class of mycorrhizal fungus in culture or (ii) CLPs isolated from Snomax inhibited the growth of mycorrhizal fungus in culture or (iii) highly purified CLPs inhibited the growth of mycorrhizal fungi in culture, and that these CLPs are the same as the ones that are present in Snomax.

From my experience of this kind of laboratory work, I suspect that (iii) is the most probable – they have tested the compounds purified from bacteria and shown it is bioactive (nothing new there: fungicide kills fungus is about as novel a discovery as that the Pope is Catholic, bears defecate in woods etc.). They can also detect this class of CLP in Snomax. (But how much?, and at what concentration??).

What they most clearly HAVEN’T done is to test Snomax directly on trees either in the natural environment, or in greenhouse tests. They have yet to show any activity by CLPs – either purified, or as part of a snowmaking additive, against fungi in an actual association with tree roots.

At the moment, I suspect that this work is at the stage where Takemoto is probably seeking further funding for his research, and by issuing a press release that suggests that a substance may have an adverse environmental impact he hopes to leverage his funding agency into a favourable outcome.

I should say that Takemoto’s scientific credentials are respectable: he seems to have a respectable track record, and that there’s nothing essentially underhand about this type of approach in “assisting” funding applications…….although I wouldn’t do it myself, and it’s not always successful.

My current view is that its very unlikely that CLPs in Snomax would have a deleterious effect on forest trees mycorrhizal associations, especially since P. syringiae is ubiquitous and abundant in the natural forest environment, and the additional input of (dead) bacterial cells isn’t going to have much of an impact, but we should wait for the right experiments to be done.

- I would expect that Snomax was only licenced for use as a snowmaking additive after appropriate regulatory approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Forest Service.

Edited once to remove long words!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Acacia, I'm well impressed! That is surely the most comprehensive piece of science to grace the pages of snowHeads, and it's intelligible! Many thanks.

By the way, Snomax was - at one time - a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak. Don't think it is now.

After all it is free

David Goldsmith,

Snomax was acquired by York Snow:

"York Snow, Inc. was founded in 1986. With offices in Denver, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec, the company set out to deliver the leading edge engineering, cooling and automated snowmaking technologies that had been pioneered in the mid '70s by its sister company, York Neige. Globally, there are now over 300 York-installed snowmaking systems operating on four different continents.

In 1997, York acquired Snomax Technologies based in Rochester, NY. Snomax Technologies had pioneered the global market for Snomax® Snow Inducer, a natural-based snowmaking additive which helps ski areas make more, high-quality snow from each gallon of water they pump."

From http://www.snowmax.com/main.htm

Eastman Kodak are based in Rochester, so I guess York Snow bought it from them.

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Research biologist alleges damage to trees from snow-making additive - TV website report

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