Glossary · Orchard
Whip and tongue
Definition
A bench grafting method in which matching sloping cuts, each with an interlocking tongue, hold scion and rootstock together while the union forms. Performed in late winter on dormant wood.
- Subject
- Orchard
In more detail
The interlocking tongues do two things: they hold the pieces without slipping while they are bound, and they increase the area of cambium contact. It is the method most often taught at grafting days and the one most amateur propagation uses.
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
Chip budding
A grafting method in which a single bud with a chip of wood behind it is fitted into a matching cut on the rootstock, usually in late summer while the bark is still active.
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
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.
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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.
Marcher Apple Network · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Has rediscovered and DNA-fingerprinted a number of lost Welsh border cultivars. Cited for identity work on cultivars the national collections do not hold.