Is it possible to fool deciduous plants into keeping their leaves
durin winter by using grow lights to prolong the "day"?

If so, what kind of lights should I use? At the moment I have two
baby plants (about 30-40 mm high) under a single 20W household
fluoresent. Should I get one of those 105 watt Envirolites - they
seem quite inexpensive and cheap to run too (for about 8 hours per day
in winter. (4 hours in the morning and another 4 from late afternoon).

Harry Haller wrote:
Is it possible to fool deciduous plants into keeping their leaves
durin winter by using grow lights to prolong the "day"?

If so, what kind of lights should I use? At the moment I have two
baby plants (about 30-40 mm high) under a single 20W household
fluoresent. Should I get one of those 105 watt Envirolites - they
seem quite inexpensive and cheap to run too (for about 8 hours per day
in winter. (4 hours in the morning and another 4 from late afternoon).

Yes, it should work well. Here in central Florida, trees near street
lights generally don't drop their leaves on the light side of the tree.
Sycamores particularly (Platanus occidentalis) often go all winter
with a branch or two of leaves near the light.

Also, the method is often used by nurserymen in rooting cuttings of
maple. If allowed to go deciduous, newly rooted maple cuttings often
don't survive the winter. But if lit during the first winter, they come
through successfully.

The AOG (accelerated optimal growth) concept for rapidly producing
deciduous forest tree seedlings used continuous fluorescent light with
plants grown in greenhouses. Here's one of the AOG articles available
online:

Wood, B.W. and Hanover, J.W. 1981. Accelerating the growth of black
walnut seedlings. Tree Planters' Notes 32(2):35-38.
http://rngr.net/Publications/tpn/32/32_2_35_39.pdf/file

The light level AOG used was low, about 2.5% to 5% of full summer
sunlight. It was meant to extend the photoperiod, not to increase
photosynthesis.

David R. Hershey

Get unnecessarily hung from natural deciduous broad-leaved trees, may make you miss the amazing results colorful autumn leaves. People from the cold weather, of course, need no introduction to this problem, but many come from warm winter climates often do not know the meaning of the autumn colors.