Prince Edward County Research Articles

Assessing the influence of climate controls on grapevine biophysical responses: a review of Ontario viticulture in a changing climate

Climate change presents unique challenges for grape growers across the world. In Ontario, three distinct viticultural regions are experiencing climatic shifts towards warmer growing seasons. According to historical records collected from Environment and Climate Change Canada, Lake Erie North Shore has transitioned from an intermediate-to-warm growing season classification, the Niagara Peninsula from the lower to upper limits of the intermediate zone, and Prince Edward County from cool to intermediate, when analyzing their average growing season temperatures. Terroir is directly related to vine water status, an indicator of grapevine stress. Biophysical responses controlled by air temperature and precipitation include fluctuations in vapour pressure deficits, evapotranspiration, and water-use-efficiency rates, as well as soil water content levels. By conducting an extensive literature review, the development of a conceptual model addresses how variations in climatic controls, under the scope of climate change, may influence grapevine water status, biophysical responses, and associated production outcomes for Ontario vineyards. Cool-to-intermediate air temperatures, when paired with increased precipitation will lead to no or low vine stress, increasing photosynthesis and transpiration rates, and variable plant water-use-efficiency levels, producing higher yields and lower quality grapes, if no management strategies are applied. Oppositely, higher air temperature as a product of climate change, when paired with variable precipitation may produce mild-to-severe stress, reducing yield, and increasing grape quality. With the appropriate management strategies, both traditional and new, growers may be able to accommodate for the influence of climate change on their vineyards.

Grappling with governance: Emerging approaches to build community economies

Economic development is evolving, where building the economy was once the largely purview of businesses and governments, increasingly, communities are taking action to build local economies that are more sustainable, equitable and inclusive. As community participation in local economic development increases, new, more collaborative governance models are beginning to emerge. This research leverages a community economies framework to explore the role of non-traditional, community actors in advancing local economic development. Building on the local, rural, and asset-based community development scholarship, this study aims to fill the gap in the literature through an empirical investigation into how one rural community, in Prince Edward County, Ontario, is developing a new governance structure to build a community-led economic development plan. Data for this research was collected through focus groups, key informant interviews and community conversations. Results highlight that when building the local economy, especially in rural communities, it is important to take an assets-first approach; leverage cross-sector partnerships; and experiment with innovative models to drive economic development. This research also illustrates the complexity of developing an alternative governance structure and offers perspectives on navigating the changing field of local economic development.

Exodus Home

Through this project, Exodus Home, Jay Simple uses self-portraiture, archival images, sculptural installations and collage to explore the issues of migration and home. Photographs of domestic and agricultural spaces in Virginia, specifically Prince Edward County, display spaces which were occupied and or abandoned during the period of the Great Migration, which occurred between 1916-1970, when six million people escaped violent persecution in the south and arrived in northern, midwestern, and western cities across the United States. An exodus of Black people poured out of the south and into the metropolitans which are now marred by brutality upon these migrant’s descendants. Moving has become a cycle, a frontier for the possibility of home, and the boundaries of that imagination are as endless as its oppositions. These hopeful ideas rest in the hallowed wood of old barns, in the memory ingrained into a body, in the things we create to mark our existence, and the late nights spent pondering, staring into the ocean of stars on a muggy night, somewhere not good, and imagining if only for a second you could leave it all behind. This project was inspired by W.E.B Dubois who, during his research for The Philadelphia Negro, heard of Farmville, Virginia and created a ethnographic and sociological study of a place gripping with the social, economic, and political moment at the end of the 19th century, the precursor to the Great Migration. He titled this work, "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: a social study". This body of work is a testament to these ancestors who fled the South for hopes of a safe haven, and it is for their descendants who continue that struggle today.

Gathering Strength to Combat Access Inequality

Nestled on the northern edge of Lake Ontario, Prince Edward County is home to a six branch public library system that is proud to have created a robust and vibrant relationship with the local school board. Through the lens of access, this article explores the steps taken by the public library to create meaningful connections with administrative staff on the school board level in order to bring practical training and resources to teachers and students in order to enhance and support their learning.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia

A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia

Resisting Brown: Race, Literacy, and Citizenship in the Heart of Virginia

Resisting Brown: Race, Literacy, and Citizenship in the Heart of Virginia

Statement of removal

Few studies have investigated how small businesses in the food sector cope with federally mandated recalls. The available literature is also unclear as to how small businesses, particularly those in food production with limited resources, manage with newly approved regulations, while working to achieve commercial success. The aim of this paper is to address this information gap through the exploration of how one firm coped with a situation that threatened its existence. This study will explore links between small firms, supply-chain resources for small food businesses and food safety regimes. This study is based on a recall experienced by an artisan cheese maker in Prince Edward County in Ontario, Canada, called Fifth Town Cheese (FTC). A conceptual framework was developed and results are presented. Finally, the paper concludes with theoretical and managerial implications, and presents avenues for future research.

Book Review: The Lazier murder: Prince Edward County, 1884 by R. J. Sharpe

Book Review: <i>The Lazier murder: Prince Edward County, 1884</i> by R. J. Sharpe

A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia ed. by Brian J. Daugherity and Brian Grogan

Reviewed by: A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia ed. by Brian J. Daugherity and Brian Grogan Kevin B. Johnson A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Edited by Brian J. Daugherity and Brian Grogan. Carter G. Woodson Institute Series. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2019. Pp. xxiv, 263. Paper, $29.50, ISBN 978-0-8139-4272-8; cloth, $59.50, ISBN 978-0-8139-4271-1.) Before federal immigration policy jeopardized child welfare with mass detentions and family separations, the school crisis in Farmville, Virginia, during the 1950s was an origin for present-day austerity politics. Brian J. Daugherity and Brian Grogan have compiled a timely document collection that captures the inception of modern conservatism in rural America, set during the civil rights struggle’s modern phase and white supremacist resistance. African American student activists like Barbara Johns spearheaded fights for quality education in a rigidly segregated rural community. Inspired by teacher Inez Davenport, Johns initiated a 1951 student-led boycott of Robert R. Moton High School; hundreds of black pupils fled “‘tar paper shacks’” and demanded a modern school (p. 34). Included here are a litany of documents emphasizing the local, state, and national developments of central Virginia’s long, complex march toward unitary schooling. The editors have divided the collection into seven chapters along with a prologue—containing the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) opinions and the 1924 Virginia Racial Integrity Act—and an epilogue providing writings on racial reconciliation from the 1990s. The intervening chapters include major sources covering women and the black freedom struggle, resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, and the inception of dog whistle politics. In 1959 Prince Edward County, Virginia, opted for an “‘extreme step’” by closing all of its public schools, thereby depriving some 2,700 African American children of any form of education for five years (p. 112). Sources for integration in Virginia allow readers to examine the absurdity of segregation; in particular, Edwin B. Henderson’s article from 1957 explains how segregationist policies served white Virginians’ economic interests. “Once segregation is outmoded,” he writes, “educated and intelligent Negroes will become competitors in a free society” for professional employment (p. 104). He likewise notes segregationists’ fears of miscegenation while they ignored the racial intermixing prevalent in the state’s population. [End Page 527] The sources in chapter 4 highlight the national response to such extreme forms of racial conservatism, and the editors introduce the documents with contextual information regarding segregationists’ tactics—vacillating between massive resistance and delay. Once the county board ceased funding public schools, the decision created chaos and upheaval for black and white children. “The entire social fabric of the county was disrupted,” Daugherity and Grogan note (p. 114). White students attended white private academies in basements and movie theaters, while many black children “left the county to live with relatives” (p. 114). The editors’ sources and contextual introductions illuminate an aspect of the civil rights era in which “‘patriotic constitutionalists’” concealed white supremacy in coded policies that ripped children from their rural Virginia community (p. 62). Daugherity and Grogan exemplify this major theme by juxtaposing sources by civil rights attorneys Spottswood W. Robinson III and Oliver W. Hill and segregationists James J. Kilpatrick and Harry F. Byrd Sr., among others. The chronological documentary format makes the work a nice complement to Jill Ogline Titus’s monograph, Brown’s Battleground: Students, Segregationists, and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chapel Hill, 2011). Kevin B. Johnson Arkansas State University, Beebe Copyright © 2020 The Southern Historical Association

We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow by Margaret Edds

Reviewed by: We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow by Margaret Edds Lauren Pearlman We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow. By Margaret Edds. Carter G. Woodson Institute Series. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2018. Pp. xiv, 391. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8139-4044-1.) Brown v. Board of Education (1954) remains a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, roundly celebrated for overturning racial segregation in public schools and dismantling the "separate but equal" doctrine that had been law since 1896. But legal victories like Brown are usually built on prior defeats. In We Face the Dawn: Oliver Hill, Spottswood Robinson, and the Legal Team That Dismantled Jim Crow, journalist Margaret Edds tells the story of the heroic and painstaking work that led to Brown, through the lives of two lesser-known legal giants. Black attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson dedicated [End Page 500] their lives to dismantling Jim Crow. But as Edds shows, nothing was a foregone conclusion. Through a sharp legal strategy fashioned by Charles Hamilton Houston, their mentor at Howard University School of Law, Hill and Robinson took on clients throughout Virginia, crafted legal arguments about racial injustice, and battled inequality in the courts, often repeating the process when the outcome was not to their liking. At the heart of Edds's story are Hill and Robinson, two men whose personal lives and public work were full of hardships but also well-earned triumphs. Their journey is told in three parts: "Origins, 1907-1939," "Incubation, 1939-1950," and "Crucible, 1950-1963." Edds skillfully weaves in the social and political context of Virginia from the early to mid-twentieth century, as well as the state's role in the larger southern landscape. As she argues, Hill and Robinson were the "missing link" between "grassroots activists, top movement commanders, and the white jurists and legislators who often governed their fate" (p. 8). Through this retelling of their lives, one can see their legal strategy take shape. In Norfolk, for example, Hill and Robinson used the lesson of a racial discrimination challenge lost in state court to file a new suit on behalf of a new client in federal court, winning this time in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear an appeal by the city of Norfolk cemented the victory, the first public school pay-equalization order to emerge from the federal courts. Hill and Robinson's work attracted the attention of students at the all-black Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Initially these students demanded improved facilities. But by the time Hill and Robinson filed Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County in 1951, they sought the desegregation of education itself. The Davis case was one of five cases consolidated into Brown. But Hill and Robinson's work did not stop after the celebrated decision. During the 1960s, Hill's path led him toward government work and political organizing and Robinson's toward academia and the bench. Edds masterfully marshals evidence from newspapers, court documents, NAACP papers, and interviews with surviving family and friends to tell the biographies of these men. Her argument, however, is not groundbreaking. Scholars will not be surprised when she explains, "The civil rights movement did not begin in the 1960s" (p. 8). Historians have long studied the work of civil rights lawyers during the 1940s and 1950s and have long examined the spaces beyond the marches on Washington, D.C., and organization headquarters, where important work was done to end discrimination and segregation policies. There is certainly an argument to be made about the importance of Prince Edward County's school desegregation efforts: white Virginians were so determined to resist integration that they kept the county's public schools closed for five years. This story has long been overshadowed by the triumph of Brown and the subsequent test case at Arkansas's Little Rock Central High School. That said, this book is a well-written, thorough account of two important Virginians, and readers will find much...

Cover crops effects on grape yield and yield quality, and soil nitrate concentration in three vineyards in Ontario, Canada

The biodiversity and resilience of wine grape production systems in humid temperate regions can be enhanced by cover crops. Individual and mixed species of cover crops were evaluated in 2014 and 2015 for their effect on vineyard productivity and soil properties in Prince Edward County (PEC), Niagara, and Lake Erie North Shore (LENS) in Ontario, Canada. Treatments included annual ryegrass (AR, control), annual ryegrass and red clover (AR+RC), annual ryegrass and forage radish (AR+FR), creeping fescue and micro clover (CF+MC), and a mixture of cover crops including oats, Italian ryegrass, red clover, alfalfa, alsike clover, and forage radish (Super Mix) and were replicated three times. Soil samples were collected once at bud break for soil properties (0-15 cm depth) and four times during the growing season for mineral N (0-30 cm depth; bud break, flowering, veraison and harvest). Results showed AR+RC and AR+FR treatments had the highest biomass in the PEC region, while AR+FR had the highest biomass in the Niagara and LENS regions averaged across years. The CF+MC treatment generally had poor establishment. Weed biomass was negatively correlated with cover crops biomass. Grape yield or yield quality (Brix, TA and YAN) and soil properties were not affected by treatments, except for AR that resulted in lower grape yield compared to other treatments in PEC in 2014. Soil nitrate concentrations, among treatments or sampling dates in each location, were not different in 2014. In 2015, soil nitrate concentrations were significantly higher in AR+RC and Super Mix treatments compared with the AR treatment only in Niagara and PEC. In conclusion, the AR+RC or AR+FR cover crops in the PEC vineyard and AR+FR in the Niagara and LENS vineyards showed high biomass and weed suppression compared to annual ryegrass with minimal cost differences.

Survey for major viruses in commercial Vitis vinifera wine grapes in Ontario

BackgroundIn recent years, the Ontario grape and wine industry has experienced outbreaks of viral diseases across the province. Little is known about the prevalence of viruses and viral diseases in Ontario. Since 2015, we have conducted large-scale surveys for major viruses in commercial wine grapes in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence and severity of viral diseases in Ontario.MethodsA total of 657 composite leaf samples representing 3285 vines collected from 137 vine blocks of 33 vineyards from three appellations: Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie North Shore and Prince Edward County. These samples covered six major red cultivars and five major white grape cultivars. Using a multiplex RT-PCR format, we tested these samples for 17 viruses including those involved in all major viral diseases of the grapevine, such as five grapevine leafroll-associated viruses (GLRaV-1, 2, 3, 4, 7), grapevine red blotch virus (GRBV), grapevine Pinot gris virus (GPGV), grapevine rupestris stem sitting-associated virus (GRSPaV), grapevine virus A (GVA), grapevine virus B (GVB), grapevine fleck virus (GFkV), arabis mosaic virus (ArMV), tomato ringspot virus (ToRSV), trapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV), among others.ResultsFourteen of the 17 viruses were detected from these samples and the predominant viruses are GRSPaV, GLRaV-3, GFkV, GPGV and GRBaV with an incidence of 84.0, 47.9, 21.8, 21.6 and 18.3%, respectively. As expected, mixed infections with multiple viruses are common. 95.6% of the samples included in the survey were infected with at least one virus; 67% of the samples with 2–4 viruses and 4.7% of the samples with 5–6 viruses. The major grape cultivars all tested positive for these major viruses. The results also suggested that the use of infected planting material may have been one of the chief factors responsible for the recent outbreaks of viral diseases across the province.ConclusionsThis is the first such comprehensive survey for grapevine viruses in Ontario and one of the most extensive surveys ever conducted in Canada. The recent outbreaks of viral diseases in Ontario vineyards were likely caused by GLRaV-3, GRBV and GPGV. Findings from this survey provides a baseline for the grape and wine industry in developing strategies for managing grapevine viral diseases in Ontario vineyards.

Land Use Change Effects on Soil Quality in Prince Edward County, ON

Soils play a critical role to society as a medium that facilitates crop production and also contributes to the energy and carbon balance of the Earth System. Land-use change and improper land-use is one of the dominant factors affecting soil erosion and nutrient loss in soils. We examined the effects of land-use change on an Elmbrook clay/clay-loam soil on a farm in Ameliasburg on the northern part of Prince Edward County. Three cover types were examined: a sod field (established for over 10 years), a wheat field (part of a wheat/corn/soybean rotation for 30 years) and an undisturbed deciduous forest. Under each land-use type, cores to a depth of 40 cm were collected along three random 30 m transects (at 8, 16 and 24 m), then divided them into 10 cm increments, combining all similar depth increments along one transect. Soil quality was assessed by analyzing various soil physical and chemical properties. Bulk density of the soil was much higher (1.55 vs. 0.95 g/cm3) in both agricultural ecosystems compared to the forest, but only in the 0-10 cm layer. Soil moisture at 60% water holding capacity was much greater for the forest than the sod and wheat soils. Soil pH was slightly lower in the forest compared to the sod and wheat fields. The sod and wheat fields showed losses of ~52% and ~53% organic matter, respectively, in contrast to the forested area. The greatest differences in organic matter and total carbon were found in the top 10 cm, likely due to the greater accumulation of litter at the ground surface in the forest compared to the agricultural sites. It appears that long-term (10 year) agricultural production has led to a decline in some, but not all, soil quality measures, particularly soil organic matter, bulk density and water holding capacity. These findings are consistent with much of the literature concerning the effects of land-use change on soil quality, and highlight the need to develop improved management systems to minimize losses in soil quality that can lead to declines in the productivity potential of soils over time.

In the Archives of Composition: Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools

In the Archives of Composition: Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools

Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680–1860 by Jennifer Oast

Reviewed by: Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680–1860 by Jennifer Oast Sara Hyde Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680–1860. By Jennifer Oast. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 264. $99.99, ISBN 978-1-107-10527-0.) Jennifer Oast's Institutional Slavery: Slaveholding Churches, Schools, Colleges, and Businesses in Virginia, 1680–1860 offers a much-needed exploration into an important aspect of southern slavery that often escapes historiographical attention. The author examines slaveholding by institutions such as churches, schools, and businesses in Virginia from 1680 until the Civil War. By examining these institutional slaveholders and the slaves they owned and hired, Oast helps craft a fuller portrait of southern slavery that includes the unique and precarious lives of slaves employed by religious, educational, corporate, and state entities. The author upends the historical proslavery argument by showcasing how slaves living under the command of institutions were entirely without the benefit of the paternalistic mastery that sometimes limited the cruelty of the slave system. Oast begins by tracing ownership and hiring of slaves by religious institutions, including Anglican, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches in Virginia, offering exceptional insight into this sort of institutional slaveholding. The author uses the "careful records" of Briery Presbyterian Church in Prince Edward County coupled with census returns to piece together an impressively full portrait of the slaves owned by the church, whom the church hired out annually, and the white southerners who hired them (p. 11). Oast's thoughtful reconstruction of these slaves' lives allows her to elucidate the heart-wrenching rhythm of the annual lease that often separated hired-out slaves from beloved family members. The author's analysis of surviving records reveals that the thirty-five slaves owned by Briery Presbyterian Church in the 1840s "were all part of an extended family, descended from slaves purchased by the congregation in the eighteenth century" (p. 108). The author demonstrates that these slaves suffered an especially heinous condition because they were hired out annually; the practice offered no continuity and ensured separation from family members as well as suffering at the hands of hirers who had no vested interest in the long-term well-being of the slaves. The author also examines slaveholding by educational institutions, including free schools, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia, among others. Oast reveals a paradoxical existence for slaves who worked on college campuses. While they often suffered at the hands of "too many 'masters,'" they also sometimes enjoyed opportunities to earn income by doing extra work for students beyond their official duties for the college (p. 173). Oast's examination of industrial slavery in Virginia accords with the historiographical consensus that skilled slaves enjoyed a level of control over their [End Page 935] own lives not available to most slaves engaged in agriculture. The author's analysis of slaves used in coal mining, gold mining, and tobacco manufacturing adds further proof of an "incentive culture" in such industries (p. 231). According to Oast, "The consent of the slaves themselves to do skilled industrial work was advantageous if the work was to be done well and efficiently. Positive incentives like pay for extra work encouraged many slaves to see industrial work as an opportunity to be sought after" (p. 229). The author reaches the conclusion that while all slaves suffered from insecurity, this problem "was exacerbated in the lives of slaves owned by institutions" (p. 233). She also stresses institutional slaveholding's "paradoxical effect on white society" (p. 236). While it broadened the spectrum of white people who benefited from slavery, it also deprived slaves of a paternalistic master, a rationale that was central to antebellum white southerners' proslavery arguments. Institutional Slavery offers a significant contribution to our understanding of American slavery. The author's careful research, astute analysis, and weighty conclusions advance awareness of less revealed aspects of the peculiar institution and its impact on both black and white southerners before the Civil War. Sara Hyde River Parishes Community College Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Black Leadership and Outside Allies in Virginia Freedom Schools

In July 1963, students from Queens College (QC) and a group of New York City teachers traveled to Prince Edward County (PEC), Virginia, to teach local black youth in Freedom Schools. The county had eliminated public education four years earlier to avoid a desegregation order. PEC Freedom Schools represented the first major effort to recruit an integrated group of outside teachers and students to educate black students in a civil rights battleground over an entire summer.In contrast to the racial and class tensions that arose between black leaders and predominantly white volunteers in other civil rights campaigns, PEC volunteers willingly deferred to the expertise of local and outside black leaders. This paper identifies the relatively modest scope and well-defined mission of the program, the real-world experiences of volunteers, and the high quality of black leadership as factors that led to this positive outcome.

Struggles for Educational Equity in Prince Edward County, VA: Resistance, Southern Manifesto Ideologies, and School Choice

ABSTRACTIn light of contemporary school choice proposals and the 60th anniversary of the Southern Manifesto, the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools crisis provides interesting historical discussion. Prince Edward County (PEC), a rural community in central Virginia, was one of five school districts represented in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional. In response to this decision, PEC closed public schools from 1959–1964 rather than desegregate them. Three other Virginia locales closed public schools to resist the desegregation mandate of Brown—Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk—but none for as long as PEC. Like the 19 Senators and 82 Representatives from each of the former Confederate states who signed the Declaration of Constitutional Principles or “Southern Manifesto” and understood the Brown ruling as a violation of state’s rights, Virginia lawmakers also vowed “…to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision [Brown] which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.”

Land Use Change Effects on Soil Quality in Prince Edward County, ON

Soils play a key role in Earth System function. When original vegetation cover is converted to cultivated land, soils often become degraded and lose their productivity potential. We examined the effects of land-use change on a clay/clay loam soil on a farm in Ameliasburg on the northern part of Prince Edward County. Three cover types were examined: perennial sod (for lawns), perennial switchgrass (potential bioengery crop) and undisturbed forest. For each soil type, cores to a depth of 40cm were collected along three random 30m transects (at 8, 16 and 24m), then divided into 10cm increments and combined along one transect according to depth. Soil quality was assessed by analyzing various soil physical and chemical properties. Bulk density was almost two-fold higher (1.5 vs. 0.82 g/cm3) in both grass systems compared to the forest, but only in the 0-10cm layer, likely due to surface compaction associated with land management. Soil pH was slightly lower in the forest compared to the switchgrass field. The sod and switchgrass fields showed losses of ~33% and ~53% organic matter, respectively in contrast to the forested area. The largest differences for organic matter and total carbon were in the top 20cm. Soil C: N ratios were highest for the forested site and lowest for the sod field. Although perennial grass systems often enhance soil quality compared to extensively tilled sites, it appears that long-term (10y) sod production has led to a decline in some, but not all, soil quality measures, particularly soil organic matter and carbon content.

Growing Grapes on the Edge: A qualitative study examining 'alternative' wine production in Canada

This critical, longitudinal case study investigates how the management team at a winery in Prince Edward County, Ontario discusses their business operations and the employment conditions of the for...

Branding Prince Edward County as a Gastronomic Niche Tourism Destination

Increasingly, gastronomy is playing a role in people's motivation for travel, and destinations are making food and beverages their main attraction. This study explored the growing field of gastronomic tourism, a type of niche tourism, through the theoretical framework of destination branding theory. Using a qualitative case study research design, this research examined the branding of the emergent region of Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada as a gastronomic niche tourism destination from the perspective of tourism industry players. Findings indicated that the region turned to gastronomic tourism due to its agricultural history and need for economic development. It was also found that tourism industry players utilized the processes of brand identity, product development, collaboration, support and communication to brand the region. This study contributes scholarly and practical knowledge to the areas of tourism and branding, by providing insight into the development, management and promotion of destination brands.