Glossary · Orchard
Tip bearer
Also written partial tip bearer. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A cultivar that fruits mainly at the ends of the previous season’s shoots. Pruning a tip bearer as though it were a spur bearer removes the fruit buds and the following crop with them.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- partial tip bearer
In more detail
Several traditional cider cultivars are tip or partial tip bearers, which is one reason old orchard pruning was light and renewal-based rather than a systematic shortening of shoots.
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
Spur bearer
A cultivar that carries most of its fruit on short, slow-growing shoots — spurs — on two-year-old and older wood. Spur bearers tolerate the routine winter shortening of shoots that pruning involves.
Orchard
Pruning
The removal of wood to shape a tree, control its size, admit light to the fruiting zone and renew bearing wood. Formative pruning builds the framework; renewal pruning maintains it.
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.
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.