Plant biologists will soon be vying for what could be the hottestreservations in town once the newly constructed Controlled Environment Facility at UC Davis starts booking researchers later this month. Nicknamed the "green giant," the $4.5 million facility offers special environmental conditions for individual plants in chambers that resemble large green refrigerators. Sixty chambers can be used to grow plants under a precise set of conditions -- ranging from a chilly, dry sub-freezing climate to a humid, hot environment -- that can be experimentally controlled and repeated. Plant biology professor Bill Lucas, who headed the project, says the facility is better than a greenhouse for exploring how plants respond to certain environmental conditions, such as changes in global carbon dioxide levels, ozone air pollution, and acid or saline soils. Believed to be the largest modern academic controlled environmental lab in the country, the green giant was funded by the National Science Foundation and the UC Davis Office of Research.