For decades, OFRI scientists have been recognized outside Ontario for their research and expertise, in areas ranging from nursery stock production to vegetation management to landscape ecology. Earlier this summer, three scientists (Steve Colombo, Rongzhou Man, and John McLaughlin) were invited to speak at key international/national natural resources meetings held in Belgium, Edmonton, and Sault Ste. Marie. Read on to learn what they talked about or choose a button link (below).
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In late June, OFRI Research Scientist Steve Colombo travelled to Brussels, Belgium for the 2012 AEBIOM European Bioenergy Conference, where he spoke about sustainability and carbon debt issues related to harvesting Ontario’s forests for biomass. He says he was invited to speak because of research he, fellow OFRI scientist Jiaxin Chen, and University of Toronto and Queens University scientists have done on tradeoffs in greenhouse gas mitigation with wood-based fuels.
“Europeans are heavy users of wood pellets for fuel, and they are concerned about the sustainability of pellets that come from Canadian forests,” Colombo says. “So they are very interested in the results of our work on the carbon benefits of replacing fossil fuels with wood-based biofuel.”
During his trip, he learned that some Europeans are unfamiliar with Canada’s approach to forest sustainability. “It was surprising to see the sustainability of Canadian forest management re-hashed yet again,” he says, “when it’s clear that over the past 30 years Canada—and I’m most familiar with Ontario—has made huge strides in sustainable forest management. We are world leaders in areas such as landscape management. Yet many Europeans aren’t aware of where things are at in Canada.”
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He in turn had a message that perked up the ears of some of the attendees, who were bioenergy producers, users, and policymakers.
“My key message was that you can’t assume that wood-based biofuel is carbon neutral,” Colombo says. “More specifically, I said that we could be harvesting more biomass in Ontario as part of sustainable forest management and that harvesting for biomass can help promote a more natural forest structure. But the net carbon benefits of switching to bioenergy may be delayed depending on what your biomass source is and what fossil fuel you are replacing.”
For example, if the practice is to burn slash residue from harvesting, using that slash to make pellets will provide a relatively quick carbon benefit for that area. Those pellets are an alternative to fossil fuel and because the fibre was being burned anyway, the net effect of instead burning them for energy is practicably carbon neutral.
Read more about Colombo and his partners’ results in Forest Bioenergy or Forest Carbon? Assessing Trade-Offs in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Wood-Based Fuels.
For more information about his talk or to get a copy of his presentation, e-mail him.
For more about his research and publications, visit his profile on the People page of OFRI's public website.
If you found the above article interesting, you might also be interested in The Carbon Neutrality Assumption for Forest Bioenergy: A Case Study for Northwestern Ontario.
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| Former OFRI Research Technician Lindsey Freeman measures how well young aspen are growing and whether they have stem or crown deformities for an aspen quality study in a northeastern Ontario boreal mixedwood forest. |
Also in late June, OFRI Research Scientist Rongzhou Man was in Edmonton for a national conference entitled Boreal Mixedwoods 2012–Ecology and Management for Multiple Values, which he helped organize.
He gave two Ontario-related presentations, one an overview of mixedwood silviculture and the other an overview of mixedwood policy.
In his first talk, Man stressed that mixedwoods are an increasingly important part of Ontario’s boreal forest and noted that our mixedwoods tend to be more complex than those out west. He urged forest managers to continue promoting mixedwoods for a range of reasons, including that they are more biodiverse and ecologically resilient and provide opportunities for high quality wood products.
His second talk spotlighted the history of mixedwood management in Ontario, planning for mixedwoods, and issues and opportunities related to mixedwood management, such as emulating natural disturbance, dealing with reduced wood demand, and reducing herbicide use.
He says the conference had a stellar lineup of other experts on boreal mixedwood management, including Vic Lieffers and Phil Comeau of the University of Alberta, Han Chen of Lakehead University, and Yves Bergeron of the University of Quebec. In addition to Man’s presentations, the conference featured:
- a talk on what’s been learned about mixedwood management since Canada’s first national boreal mixedwood management meeting in April 1988 (lots!)
- a panel discussion on opportunities and challenges for boreal mixedwood management, with conifer regeneration and climate change presented as key challenges
- a presentation on the future of mixedwood management, including developing more aspen products and producing more bioenergy
Man also notes that Glen Armstrong of the University of Alberta addressed economic considerations for the boreal mixedwood forest, including that intensive silviculture is not economically viable based on current prices but harvesting the right wood the right way at the right time as part of mixedwood management can increase profits and decrease costs.
To view all the presentations, visit the conference website. Or you can wait for the proceedings of this meeting, which will be published in a special issue of The Forestry Chronicle next year. We will let you know when that is available.
For more information about this conference or about boreal mixedwood management in Ontario, e-mail Rongzhou Man.
You can also learn more about Man's research, by visiting his profile on the People page of OFRI's public website.
In August, OFRI Research Pathologist John McLaughlin gave two talks during the international Terrestrial Invasive Plant Species Conference, held in Sault Ste. Marie.
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| OFRI researchers discovered that Macedonian pine (such as the centre tree above) and some Macedonian pine/eastern white pine hybrids growing at OFRI’s arboretum in Sault Ste. Marie are highly susceptible to Dook’s needle blight, a native fungal disease. |
He was also on the organizing committee for this conference, as were OFRI Manager Wayne Fiset and OFRI Technology Transfer Coordinator Lisa Buse. McLaughlin’s first talk focused on the recent discovery by OFRI researchers that pine hybrids that are part eastern white pine and part Macedonian pine have heightened susceptibility to a disease known as Dook’s needle blight, which is native to North America and was first reported on in 1984.
“We recently discovered a severe outbreak of this disease in a five needle pine genetic archive at OFRI’s arboretum outside of Sault Ste. Marie,” McLaughlin says. “This plantation contains five needle pines with a range of genetic backgrounds, but those that were part or all Macedonian pine were by far the most severely affected.”
He explains that OFRI researchers led by Research Geneticist Pengxin Lu are developing white pine hybrids in hopes of finding some that can tolerate the invasive alien disease known as blister rust. Over the past century, blister rust has been a major culprit in the decline of eastern white pine in Ontario, and researchers have been unable to find any native white pine individuals that can resist the disease. Hybrids are the best hope for restoring white pine to sites at high risk of blister rust infection.
Over the last decade, OFRI researchers have successfully developed hybrids that are more than 85 per cent eastern white pine and yet resist blister rust. They are now working on another generation of hybrids that will be 94 per cent eastern white pine.
“The bad news is that hybrids with Macedonian pine ancestry are very susceptible to Dook’s needle blight,” McLaughlin says. “The good news is that hybrids with Himalayan blue pine ancestry not only show good resistance to blister rust but also tolerate Dook’s needle blight fairly well.”
He adds, “The susceptibility of Macedonian pine is not just a concern for researchers but also for the horticultural industry. Macedonian pines are popular trees for landscaping, and if we keep planting them and they hybridize with our native white pine, our pine populations could be further jeopardized by disease.”
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| OFRI researchers have chosen three DNA-based tests to determine whether butternut that appear healthy are pure butternut and thus protected or are hybrids (butternut/Japanese walnut). If the bars shown in the orange boxes appear, that is evidence the tree is a butternut; bars in the yellow boxes are evidence the tree is a hybrid, and bars in the blue boxes indicate Japanese walnut. This gel is a composite for demonstration purposes. |
In his second talk, McLaughlin reported on his research on butternut canker, an invasive alien disease that led to this tree species being classified as endangered in Canada in 2005.
He explains that he and his research team at OFRI are supporting the butternut recovery strategy in several ways, including developing a DNA-based test for butternut hybridity and identifying pure trees for further testing and breeding.
“Because butternut is now an endangered species, healthy butternut trees are protected,” McLaughlin says. “But the catch is that butternut readily hybridizes with Japanese walnut, a tree often planted for nut production and landscaping, and hybrids are not protected. It can be very difficult to tell whether a tree is a pure butternut or a hybrid. So when someone needs to determine if a tree is pure or a hybrid, they take a cutting and send it to us, and we test it for hybridity.”
Developing a testing method has been challenging, he says. He and his team are using three of 10 DNA markers identified by Purdue University as being useful indicators of hybridity and have found they work well.
However, they’ve had their share of technical challenges along the way, including the fact that Canadian butternut appear to have different hybridization patterns than U.S. butternut.
“About 90 per cent of American hybrids have Japanese walnut as their maternal parent,” he says, “while only about 77 per cent of the Canadian trees we tested have Japanese walnut as the maternal parent. Why? We don’t know for sure, but possibly the U.S. butternut have undergone more cycles of hybridization than Canadian trees have.”
He adds that when science is supporting legislation such as the Endangered Species Act, methods must be especially rigorous. “For example, we can’t say that a tree is a pure butternut. What we can say is that it shows no signs of hybridity according to our tests.”
Cuttings from healthy trees with no signs of hybridity will be archived so they can be grown into trees later and tested to see if they are indeed resistant to butternut canker. The ultimate goal is to develop many lines of trees with resistance so they can restore butternut to its former range in Ontario.
According to McLaughlin, many people inside and outside of MNR are partners in the butternut recovery work, such as staff with MNR's Forest Health and Silviculture Section, MNR district office staff in southern Ontario, staff with the Forest Gene Conservation Association, and U.S. researchers with the USDA Forest Service/Purdue University.
If you’d like more information about McLaughlin’s work on Dook’s needle blight or butternut canker, e-mail him.
You can also learn more about McLaughlin's research by visiting his profile on the People page of OFRI's public website.
If you’d like to view his slide presentations or download the TIPS conference program, which contains abstracts for all the talks, visit the TIPS website.
