Glossary · Orchard
Seedling rootstock
Also written crab stock, pip stock. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
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.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- crab stock, pip stock
In more detail
Because each seedling is genetically distinct, an old orchard on seedling stocks contains trees of noticeably different size and vigour even where the scion cultivar is the same. Consistency was precisely what clonal rootstock breeding at East Malling set out to supply.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
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
Standard
A tree grown on a vigorous rootstock with a clear trunk of about 1.8 to 2.1 metres before the first branch, forming a large canopy that can be grazed or mown beneath.
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.
Fruit
Wilding
A tree grown from a chance seedling rather than grafted from a known cultivar, and the fruit it bears. Wildings supplied much of the fruit in old hedgerow and farm orchards.
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.