Glossary · Orchard
Graft
Also written grafting. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The joining of a scion to a rootstock so that their cambium layers unite and grow as one tree. It is the only reliable way to reproduce an apple or pear cultivar.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- grafting
In more detail
Apples are highly heterozygous: a pip from a Dabinett produces a tree that is not a Dabinett and is usually worthless for cider. Grafting sidesteps sexual reproduction entirely. The union is visible for the life of the tree as a swelling near the base, and shoots arising below it belong to the rootstock, not the cultivar.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Orchard
Scion
A length of dormant one-year-old shoot from the cultivar to be propagated, joined to a rootstock so that it becomes the fruiting part of the tree.
Orchard
Rootstock
The root system onto which a fruiting cultivar is grafted. It governs the tree’s eventual size, its speed into bearing, its anchorage and its tolerance of soil conditions, without changing the fruit itself.
Orchard
Chip budding
A grafting method in which a single bud with a chip of wood behind it is fitted into a matching cut on the rootstock, usually in late summer while the bark is still active.
Orchard
Whip and tongue
A bench grafting method in which matching sloping cuts, each with an interlocking tongue, hold scion and rootstock together while the union forms. Performed in late winter on dormant wood.
Orchard
Top working
Regrafting an established tree to a different cultivar by cutting back its main branches and grafting scions onto the stubs, keeping the existing root system and framework.
Fruit
Cultivar
A named clone propagated by grafting, so that every tree of it is genetically identical to the original seedling. "Variety" is used interchangeably in trade, though it has a stricter botanical meaning.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
NIAB (incorporating East Malling Research)
NIAB · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
East Malling developed the M-series apple rootstocks that determine tree size in essentially every modern orchard, cider orchards included. The authority CiderHQ uses for rootstock behaviour.
Marcher Apple Network · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Has rediscovered and DNA-fingerprinted a number of lost Welsh border cultivars. Cited for identity work on cultivars the national collections do not hold.