Glossary · Orchard
Pollinator
Also written polliniser, pollinizer. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A cultivar planted to supply compatible pollen to the cropping variety, or — in the other sense of the word — the insect that carries it. Crab apples are often used as pollen sources because they flower long and heavily.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- polliniser, pollinizer
In more detail
The two meanings are worth separating: a polliniser is the pollen-donor tree, a pollinator is the bee or hoverfly doing the work. Both are limiting factors. Cold or wet weather during the flowering window suppresses insect activity regardless of how well the orchard is laid out.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Pollination management
Arranging compatible flowering partners and the insects to move pollen between them, without which a self-incompatible apple orchard sets little or no fruit.
Production
Orchard biodiversity management
Managing an orchard for the deadwood, veteran trees and old grassland that make traditional orchards a recognised priority habitat, and confronting what that costs in fruit.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Orchard
Pollination group
A numbered band grouping cultivars by the timing of their blossom, so that a grower can plant varieties that flower together and can therefore pollinate one another.
Fruit
Crab apple
A small, hard, very acidic and often astringent apple, whether a wild species or a small-fruited cultivar. Crabs are used as orchard pollinators, occasionally as a source of acid and tannin, and traditionally for verjuice.
Orchard
Triploid
A cultivar carrying three sets of chromosomes rather than two. Triploids are vigorous and often heavy croppers but produce sterile or near-sterile pollen, so they cannot pollinate anything and need two other cultivars in the orchard.
Orchard
Flowering
The blossom period, when the crop is set or lost. Cider cultivars flower over several weeks in spring, and the sequence is consistent enough between cultivars to be used for planning even though the dates move each year.
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.
Traditional Orchard Habitat Inventory and orchard loss surveys
People’s Trust for Endangered Species / Natural England · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24. The traditional orchard campaign pages were reached and confirmed, but the orchard-loss figures CiderHQ wants from this body sit in survey outputs rather than on the campaign page, and were not located in this pass.