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i have a winter ?

  • #21
I agree with jimscott about the importance of light. One non-CP example is my fig tree, which spends winters in my garage. I spray it with a few coats of WiltPruf to minimize water loss during dormancy and used to wrap it too. Every year it leafed out later, grew more slowly and was definitely in decline. All my smaller fig trees had already died or were traded/given away. Finally, I was giving up on the big tree too and only sprayed and didn't wrap it one winter because I didn't see the point in spending so much time on it. The following spring it sprung to life and, although it only grew a few figs, it grew a lot of new wood. I've never wrapped it again and each year it breaks dormancy right away and gets off to a great start.

I think I was messing up its clock by robbing it of all light and that it needed to sense the lengthening day going from winter into spring. Maybe it has to start some physiological processes a couple months before it can break dormancy. Without the daylength signal at that time of year, it couldn't get started until much later in the season. That's my hypothesis, anyway. It's a very testable hypothesis, by the way, if anyone has a bunch of figs and a need to do a plant physiology study.
 
  • #22
This may sound wierd, but has anyone ever tried hookin up some 2 foot fluorescent lights inside a fridge on, like a 6 hour photoperiod before?
I wonder if it would make a difference. But it appeared, in scottychaos' fridge exp. w/o light that they turned out fine.
 
  • #23
This may sound wierd, but has anyone ever tried hookin up some 2 foot fluorescent lights inside a fridge on, like a 6 hour photoperiod before?
I wonder if it would make a difference. But it appeared, in scottychaos' fridge exp. w/o light that they turned out fine.

at "fridge temps", around 35 degrees, light is completely unnecessary..
because at those temps, the plants arent growing anyway..its too cold to grow..
which is part of the "point" of dormancy..its a rest period..the plants arent supposed to be growing..so light in the fridge would be a complete waste..the plants wouldnt use it anyway.

my plants are in COMPLETE darkness for 3 and half months!
wrapped tight in black plastic bags..doesnt get much darker than that! ;)
they dont grow at all..which is fine..

If your plants spend their dormancy at higher temps, like 45-50, light might be more beneficial..but I still wouldnt bother with artificial light..most people who keep their plants at those temps have them in the window of an unheated garage or attic..where they get some natural light..

Scot
 
  • #24
That wasn't hypothesis. That was application and reality. In November, paying attention to the forecast, I toted my buckets to the attic. I kept them barely moist and exposed to the air, right at the window. Nature did the rest. I lost one VFT and all the rest woke up on their own. I didn't take them outside again until April.

You can, when they've effectively stopped discernibly growing, pull them out of the media, dust with a fungicide, and put in baggies, in the fridge. That is also a common practice. Some don't use a fungicide. They're kept almost dry.

A few years ago I simply put two 2" pots of VFT's in the butter keeper, as is, for the last part of the winter. In April, now outisde again, I was rewarded with flowers and new plants.
 
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