requirements have been met. The cut ends of the stems are dipped in paraffin to prevent water loss, and the stems are stored at 4circC until use. Seeds are sown in greenhouses in February, and seedlings from vigorous sources can be ready to graft onto by July. A success rate of approximately 80-90% is obtained with chip budding dormant wood onto an actively growing seedling rootstock (KSU, unpublished data).

While grafting onto a seedling rootstock successfully preserves the character of the scion, it does have disadvantages. First, the seedling rootstock will impart some variability in vigor. Secondly, understock suckering and winter kill of the scions in harsh winters can be a problem in pawpaw, and the root suckers would not be of the desirable genotype. Therefore, it would be preferable to develop a method of clonally propagating pawpaw on its own roots. In case of winter kill of the scions, having the trees on their own roots would prevent complete loss of the desired genotype as the remaining root system could produce clonal shoots. Pawpaw produces many root suckers, which on a grafted tree would be of the seedling rootstock's genotype rather than the desirable scion. Obtaining cultivars on their own roots would eliminate this problem. Other advantages to clonally propagating pawpaw on its own roots would be a possible reduction in labor compared to grafting, and less time to reach plantable size. Potential graft incompatibility problems would also be eliminated. These goals would not only be advantageous to the commercial pawpaw industry, but to KSU as a USDA-NCGR site. Layering

Layering is a form of clonal plant propagation in which stems form adventitious roots while still attached to the mother plant (Hartmann et al., 1997). Once rooting has occurred, the rooted stem is separated from the mother plant. Layering has been an important method of clonally propagating many plant selections throughout horticultural history, especially of difficult-to-root woody plant species. In recent years, layering has been replaced by other, more recently developed, plant propagation techniques such as micropropagation; however, layering is still commonly used to propagate difficult-to-root species, especially tree fruit rootstocks (Hartmann et al., 1997; Armstrong, 2000). There are many modifications of layering, including simple layering, French layering, serpentine layering, air layering, mound layering (or stooling), trench layering, and pot layering.