A vineyard is a year round occupation. Most vineyards here on the North Fork have already started pruning their vines. At right is my Billie sniffing her way through some of the discarded canes.
This vineyard uses double Guyot pruning, where the lateral canes are new every year and only the trunk gets thicker.
Other vineyards use spur pruning where the lateral canes are kept year to year, and cut back to a specific number of buds. This particular type of spur pruning is know as cordon de royat.
On top is a drawing of a double Guyot. Bottom is spur pruned. Most vineyards here use Guyot, named after a French doctor for his work in the 1860s. One benefit of spur pruning is that it lends itself well to mechanical picking, but cane-pruned vines are picked mechanically also.
[image via OCW online]
