Glossary · Orchard
Rootstock
Also written stock. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
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.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- stock
In more detail
Because apples do not come true from seed and because a cultivar’s own roots give unpredictable vigour, virtually every orchard tree is a graft: a scion of the wanted cultivar on a rootstock chosen for the site and the system. The same Dabinett is a two-metre bush on M9 and a ten-metre standard on a seedling stock.
Rootstock choice is therefore a decision about the orchard’s working life. Dwarfing stocks need permanent support and irrigation on dry sites; vigorous stocks anchor themselves and last, but delay a return on planting by years.
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
M9
A dwarfing apple rootstock from the Malling series, producing a small, early-bearing tree that requires permanent staking and good soil moisture. Standard for intensive dessert orchards and used for some intensive cider planting.
Orchard
M25
A vigorous apple rootstock producing a full standard tree, self-supporting and long-lived. It is the usual modern choice where a traditional standard orchard is being planted or replanted.
Orchard
MM106
A semi-dwarfing apple rootstock bred for woolly aphid resistance, giving a self-supporting half-standard or large bush. It has been the workhorse of twentieth-century cider bush orchards.
Orchard
Seedling rootstock
A rootstock grown from seed rather than from a clonal stool bed. Vigorous and variable, it was the standard basis of traditional orchards before the Malling series was selected.
Orchard
Quince rootstock
A dwarfing rootstock used for pears, giving a smaller and earlier-bearing tree than a pear seedling stock. Many perry pear cultivars are incompatible with it and require an interstem or a pear stock.
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
Graft
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.
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.