How does one go about forcing dormancy? I have plants growing under growlights since my patio doesn't get enough sun. I'm not worried about fruiting just yet, my focus is to keep them alive until I get a backyard. I do know that they need at least 100 chill days from what I've read. I can't just throw them in the refrigerator that's for sure, do I turn up the AC or just throw them outside in the winter.

How I do I force the green growth to become woody before I do it? I don't want to kill the soft tissue.  

Hey Jarrett,

Any reason why you can't place your figs outside on the patio in September and let nature take care of the rest? As Summer ends and Autumn commences, days get shorter, your day and evening temperatures will drop, and as Winter approaches I would suspect your trees to want to go dormant. Leaves should turn yellow and eventually drop as the plant prepares for it's dormant period. Or, am I missing why you can't put plants outside? From my experience, the temps don't have to drop that much here in Maryland in late Autumn for all of this to occur naturally.

Kind regards

Some cuttings started late and just started to break so I didn't know if I could throw them out in winter so soon. My older plants I have no problem doing that to. 

i'd say if they are really small plants, they don't HAVE to go dormant. You can keep them growing indoors with your lights and next year, when larger, get them outside for the entire growing season. I kept five plants like this indoors this past winter and they are doing great. i'll defer also to others with other experiences in keeping small plants growing through winter indoors. Cheers

They can take a light frost, usually if it is a small plant I let it get a single frost then bring it to the garage, then back and forth to nights where there is no frost, the Big ones I brought back and forh until december just because I didn't want them to get too soak with all the rain we had, they saw -6 celcius a few times once they lost their leaves.

If they are young grow them under the growlights this winter. I had fantastic results with my youngsters under growlights inside and also youngsters in my greenhouse. I just kept feeding them fertilizer and growing them out. I also gave them 12-14 hours of t5 light. Many fruited earlier the next season and then they went dormant naturally in late fall and early winter.

They don't need dormancy in their first winter. Let them grow. Even outside in our "winter" many small plants do not lose their leaves the first winter, or lose them very, very late. Small plants want to grow.