It's pretty obvious temperature affects plants going into dormancy.
Remember there are areas in the world where figs do not go dormant.
Those areas have long day light hours and high temperatures.
Day light hours are cut naturally in colder zones from late fall through winter.
When daylight hours increase in the spring, this is when most people
start gardens ect.
When I bring a airlayer inside it is dormant with no leaves.
Introducing the dormant tree to 12 hours a day of good lighting  is just
like what the plant had a few months back.
When it was growing the fastest.
Fig trees outside do go dormant when temperatures drop.
Colder zones usually go dormant before warmer zones do.
Most of it is just common sense.

Doug

for example of todays day light hours between South Carolina and cannada

http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/canada/toronto

http://sunrise-sunset.org/us/chester-sc  

today alone
toronto has

Day length

8h 57m 59s



in my zone

Day length: 09 hours, 51 minutes

Well size of truck, 3 inches has a better chance to make it, then just the small branches die off the more thicker the bark gets, the better it can live in the cold, its not the cold as much as the wind dries out the bark and it dies. This year i only put plastic tubes over two types, and one i put a plastic dome over and a tarp its live or die i only want to grow very hardy ones way to cold here it get to 20 below F yep F for one or two days My Swiss one will not clone the bark is to hard, will keep trying got one by laying a branch down, but that one is going to a very close friend, i owe a huge favor to and where he lives he won't have to do anything but eat the figs  He's only 25 miles away but here it means a lot Much colder in some parts of CT. then other parts I live at 677 feet above sea level he onlyrops to maybe 10 degrees when i go to minus 20F 

I planted Conadria, Hardy Chicago, Green Ischia, an Unknown, Desert King in ground in a unheated hoophouse in zone 4b Wisconsin.  The site has gotten -25F numerous times.  All 8 figs die back to the ground every year but grow back from the roots.  Growth on a couple was more than 9 feet  in the course of one WI growing season (May - Oct).  So far the only variety that has ripened figs is Desert King but the last 2 years the figs in the greenhouse have not been prepped for winter.

I could grow oranges with a green house if I wanted.
But, common sense tells me I'm not in the right zone for it.
I don't have zone envy just because I cant grow oranges.
I have to accept what is logical to grow in my zone then do
the best I can with what I am given, weather wise.


Doug

Fig Buddies, As a dowser I come across some unusual sources of information. Two books of merit for gardening are "the Secret Life Of Plants" and "Secrets Of The Soil" Both by Tompkins & Bird. In "Secrets of the Soil" page 402 there is instructions on how to make BD507 The Juice of Valerian. This is a biodynamic preparation used to ease the plant stress of late freezing. It is sprayed and I'm sure it would work for early freezing. Other sources of information on dowsing are The American Society Of Dowsers (ASD) in Danville, VT. and two more books, "The Diviners Mind" by T.Edward Ross and Richard Wright and "The Diviners Heart" by Patricia C. and Richard D. Wright. The ASD prints a book of articles from 1963-1988 called "The Water Dowsers Manual" which I find invaluable.

That's it, I'm building a greenhouse off my barn.
I want oranges and bananas.

lol

Doug