Glossary · Orchard
Top working
Also written frameworking, top grafting. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
Regrafting an established tree to a different cultivar by cutting back its main branches and grafting scions onto the stubs, keeping the existing root system and framework.
- Subject
- Orchard
- Also written
- frameworking, top grafting
In more detail
Top working converts an orchard to new fruit far faster than replanting, because the tree already has the roots to support a crop: a top-worked standard can fruit again within three or four years. It was used historically to change over unfashionable cultivars and is used now to add pollinators to a block or to rescue a mislabelled planting.
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
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.
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
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.
Orchard
Orchard renewal
Replacing failing or unproductive trees, either individually within a standing orchard or by clearing and replanting a block. Renewal planning is what keeps an orchard in production across generations.
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.