Glossary · Orchard
Standard
Also written full standard. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
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.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- full standard
In more detail
The standard is the traditional cider and perry orchard form. The clear stem exists so that stock can graze without reaching the fruiting wood, which is why standard orchards are also pasture. Trees take a decade or more to crop meaningfully and can then produce for a century or longer.
Its disadvantages are all economic: harvesting requires shaking or ground collection rather than picking, spraying is difficult, and yield per hectare is a fraction of a bush orchard’s. Its advantages are longevity, habitat value and landscape, which is why standard orchards are the form protected as traditional orchards.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Production
Standard orchard systems
Widely spaced, tall-trunked, long-lived fruit trees over grassland — a family of related but genuinely different systems running from the Three Counties through Normandy to the Austrian meadows.
Production
Grazing under trees
Running livestock in an orchard so the sward becomes a second crop, with the tree protection, stock timing and food-safety rules that arrangement requires.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Orchard
Half-standard
A tree with a clear stem of roughly 1.2 to 1.5 metres — lower than a standard, higher than a bush — allowing limited grazing while keeping the canopy within reach.
Orchard
Bush
A small tree on a dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock with a short stem, planted at high density and cropping within a few years of planting. Most cider fruit grown commercially since the mid twentieth century comes from bush orchards.
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.
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
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
Veteran tree
An old tree carrying the features that come with age — hollowing trunk, decaying heartwood, dead limbs, loose bark and cavities — which together make it habitat for species that live nowhere else in the orchard.
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.
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.
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.
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.