Brought in the trees during 1st week of Dec when temp. was hovering around 4-5* C and now to my surprise the trees have woke up & putting out figs & leaves. Its happening to all my trees. Question  -- is this a good sign or should I force them back to sleep by putting them back to dormant state in the unheated garage. The outside temp. fluctuates between -1 to 5* Cent. almost daily. I like to have a headstart but seems alittle too early. We have lots of winter to go thru, with Jan. & Feb. being the coldest. During these months we could run into -5* to -8*C for one or two weeks depending on the artic outflows.

Paul

Paully, I'm not good with Celsius temps, but I ran a conversion and it said your outside temps would be running just below freezing to about 15 degrees F over the winter.  If that's right, by putting them in the garage initially you should have been OK through the winter.
Now that they have broken dormancy, it  is much riskier.  Check the temperature in the garage to see how much lower it gets compared to outside (you can check a thermometer first thing in the morning and it will usually give you the low if you don't have a max-min thermometer).  If it isn't freezing overnight in the garage yet, and you can slow them down a bit before real cold weather hits you might get away with it .  Might not be worth the risk though.

You are right  Fignut that it is not worth the risk. I read somewhere along the same that it is not advisable to try to get them back to dormancy. So hopefully the main crop can have an early start & ripe by Sept in my time zone. Thanks.

Paul

I was just going to ask this question, since it happened to me as well.  Used the search feature, found this thread.

This week, my wife and I travelled to Florida for Christmas with my parents.  Because we had some below-freezing days while I was gone, I took all of my potted figs and moved from outside and into the basement, which stays around 60ºF-65ºF year-round.

When I returned, I found:

After reading the info above, it looks like it will be a bad idea to put them outside again in the freezing cold.  I suppose I will just leave them be and let them grow in the basement.

Ok so after reading this post I went to take a look at two dormant plants and what do I see my Brown Turkey has broken dormancy and has started to grow leaves. What should I do now? Usually its between 0 & -5 celcius where it is this time of year but instead its been between +5 & 10 degrees celcius.

Im no expert about dormancy so that being said let me take a gander here.
Paul you said you brought in trees when it was about 5 C outside , so thats about 40 F which will only start dormancy as from what i have read there are several steps to dormancy . I compare it too human sleep and deep sleep called REM. When i first lay down i sort of day dream but not really sleep sorta say, then i fall deeper but still the slightest noise will wake me, the later stage REM is deep sleep. If your figs only saw 40 and you brought them in they might not have been fully dormant even if leaves were curling or falling off in my opinion simply put the temps were not cold enough yet. With mine i let see several mid 20 temps then i put them in garage but by that time the garage is 35F or so, oh once in a while the temps rise to 40 or so but they are already in a deep sleep with very little light and cannot wake up very easily as the posters plants here seem to have . Oh the young ones are stubborn and take longer but soon they succumb because of cold gets colder steadily in my area and with lack of or very little light in garage they get into a deep dormancy. Just a thought of what might have happened.

Satellite, from your post they started dormancy because of cold temps but when you moved then to 60 to 65 which is spring temps thats much to warm and they should wake up.

Its been said fig plants need very little chill hours maybe 100 to 200 ?
I tend to think in tropical climates instead of fig plants going into full dormancy like they do in a colder zone they perhaps slow down some and then when temps get real warm as they will in those area's the plant senses this and bada bing starts going thru its fruiting stages.
Thats just speculation and by no means am i sure.
But im sure about in cold area's and dormancy as i have observed mine over the years and what they do in cold weather and the extremes in cold temps they can handle in garage as well, and what it takes to get them to wake back up from dormancy which for me takes a while to get them a head start.
Problem is what to do once there awake and i cant righfully say as this has never happened to me.

Martin very well said, This is exactly what I dont understand back home temps never go lower than 40 degrees yet the fig trees are dormant for 4 months but I must say 13 degrees celcius in Madeira Island feels like 0 here in toronto its a damp cold even the bed sheets get wet from the cold moisture. So next year these figs are going in my dads unheated unattached garage hope they can handle it.

Be carful about next year storing them, mine would get damage to the limbs and needed to be cut off the first 3 years. Nextdoor neighbor 8 years or so back recieved a brown turkey from me several years old and it died that winter in his unheated shed, last season a sals i gave him that was 2 years old he stored in his garage same garage  as mine and it never came back for some reason or another.
Maybe cover them good in that shed as im thinking at least my shed gets colder similar to the outdoor temp as opposed to say mt attached garage which has one wall the north facing wall sharing the house halway wall.Although it was a minus 23F last season the lowest garage temp was 6 to 8 F im sure my shed was probably right near the outdoor tempas its not insulated and the walls are not protected just a thin plywood not brick like my garage.

Thanks Martin think were going to have to build something in the garage to store the figs next year. Temps in the garage in the winter are usually between -10 to -15 celcius.

It seems the younger the plant the longer it takes to go dormant and the sooner they break dormancy.  If they are young I wouldn't worry too much because fruit production wouldn't be expected anyway.  Dieseler is correct the trees only need about 100-200 chill hours.

Lesson learned though:  if the trees are 3 or more years old they should be stored where its cold.  That is the strategy I follow.  If the tree is young they are stored in a cool room/cantena which is dark and about 10 degrees Celsius.  That way the young ones are safe from freezing.

I used to stress about this issue but after speaking to many seasoned vets in horticulture, the best way to sum it up is: "They cannot fight their nature to grow and neither can we."

Good luck Paul, I am sure they will be fine.

Nas