This project was designed for demonstrating the process where fruit plants are produced so as to make all pieces of the same variety taste the same. I grafted pawpaw trees to see which graft, whip and tongue, or chip budding would be more successful in propagating the fruit. Both methods were performed under the same and no control plants were used. It was hypothesized that chip budding method would be more successful at fruit propagation. The preliminary results indicate that chip budding was much more successful than the whip and tongue method. This project taught me several things about grafting processes and how they are performed. The heat was killing me while I was working on the KSU Demonstration and Research Farm, but the results of the experiment made it all worthwhile. It was a great experience that taught me that you need a lot of time to complete research and a lot of hard work to go with it.
What if one day you went into a grocery store to pick up some fruit, and one was really good and the other wasn't so sweet tasting? Have you ever had that experience, or are they all pretty good? Well, with grafting you can take the buds or new grown parts of the good tasting fruit and graft them, essentially, cloning them. This is how good fruit from the grocery store is made. Out on KSU's research and demonstration farm I took part in a research project working