Glossary · Orchard
Orchard renewal
Also written replanting. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
Replacing failing or unproductive trees, either individually within a standing orchard or by clearing and replanting a block. Renewal planning is what keeps an orchard in production across generations.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- replanting
In more detail
Replanting into the same ground raises the problem of specific apple replant disease, a soil-borne complex that stunts young trees planted where apples have grown before. Practical answers are moving the rows, resting the ground, or planting into gaps rather than into old tree positions.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Orchard
Grubbing up
Removing an orchard by pulling out the trees and their roots. In Britain and much of Europe it was carried out at scale in the later twentieth century, in places with public grant support.
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.
Orchard
Traditional orchard
An orchard of widely spaced standard or half-standard trees on vigorous rootstocks, with a permanent grassland floor that is grazed or mown. In the United Kingdom it is a recognised priority habitat.
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.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.