About OFRI, its partners, and its facilities

MNR's Ontario Forest Research Institute

What is OFRI?

OFRI is MNR’s main forest research unit, based in Sault Ste. Marie, at the eastern tip of Lake Superior.

OFRI researchers study Ontario’s forests to help ensure that forest management policies, planning, and practices have a strong scientific foundation. Their work helps to sustain a variety of forest values: biodiversity, timber production, wildlife habitat, recreation, and more.

OFRI has about 50 staff, including research scientists, foresters, biologists, statisticians, technicians, technology transfer specialists, managers, and administrative staff. 

OFRI also houses about 50 staff from other MNR units: Who's at OFRI besides forest research?

 

What are OFRI researchers studying?

  • how climate change is affecting Ontario’s forests, as well as how to help forests adapt to a changing climate
  • how much carbon Ontario’s forests and northern peatlands store now and into the future
  • how natural disturbance such as fire unfold across Ontario’s forest landscape
  • how best to harvest forest biomass for renewable energy
  • how to grow trees to ensure a sustainable supply of timber for mills and habitat for woodland creatures
  • how to control exotic diseases that affect forests
  • how to improve predictions for future forest growth and timber yield
  • and more! (check out OFRI research profiles)

At what scale do OFRI researchers work?

 

OFRI research Wayne Bell speaking during a field tour in the boreal forest
OFRI researcher Wayne Bell speaking during a field tour in the boreal forest.

OFRI researchers work at a range of scales. Some focus on individual seedlings and trees, others on forest stands, and still others on the entire boreal forest.
 

Studying trees and forests at a range of scales helps to sustain forests at all those scales. Some issues, such as climate change, require a big picture view, while others, such as shade requirements of young white pine, require scientists to zoom in and examine the fine detail in specific ecosystems.

Who are OFRI’s clients?


OFRI’s most important clients are other MNR staff, especially those who produce forest management policies, plans, and guides. Research results are also interesting/useful to staff with:

  • other ministries (Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines)
  • Natural Resources Canada-Canadian Forest Service
  • forest industry
  • universities
  • environmental groups

Some of OFRI’s results are also of interest to members of the public, for example, woodlot and cottage owners and sugarbush operators. 

How does OFRI deliver research results to clients?


Results are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Researchers then transfer results to the people in government and forest industry who oversee and manage Ontario's forests, through:

Who are OFRI’s research partners?


OFRI researchers have a long and successful history of forming productive research partnerships with other organizations, and they are making more than just research contributions to these partnerships.


For example, they helped design the Canadian Ecology Centre Forestry-Research Partnership, a collaboration among MNR, Tembec, and the Canadian Forest Service.


And several OFRI researchers have a strong relationship with scientists at the University of Toronto, collaborating on subjects such as peatland carbon, modelling of carbon in wood products, and biomass harvesting. OFRI’s research partners include:

Where is OFRI located, and what are its facilities like?

 

Preparing forest soil samples for analysis

OFRI is headquartered at 1235 Queen St. East in Sault Ste. Marie, a great place for conducting forest research. The city lies in the transition zone between the boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest regions and has one of the highest concentrations of forest researchers in North America.


OFRI's facilities offer researchers a range of environments in which to conduct experiments, including: 

  • a 9,000-square-metre research building, with state-of-the-art growth chambers and growth rooms; three types of greenhouses; and inorganic chemical, biochemical, pathology, and somatic embryogenesis laboratories
  • a 95-hectare arboretum (tree farm), located just outside Sault Ste. Marie
  • hundreds of research plots in forests across Ontario 

How did OFRI get started, and what are some of its key accomplishments? 

 
Back in 1945, MNR was known as the Department of Lands and Forests. That year the department set up a forest research program at Maple, Ontario, to address the problem of yellow birch not regenerating after harvest. Over the decades, Department of Lands and Forests/MNR forest researchers have worked on many important forest management projects, including:

  • Developing one of the first and best systems for classifying ecosystems, one that still holds up to scientific scrutiny today
  • Developing white pine hybrids that can resist the devastating exotic disease known as blister rust
  • Developing the innovative Brohm aerial tree seeder
  • Generating a wealth of new knowledge about how to handle and store tree seedlings, especially over the winter
  • Vastly increasing knowledge about how best to control plants that compete with high value tree species
  • Developing an array of new tests to assess the condition of tree seedlings before planting
  • Developing many new GIS-based computer tools to help resource managers make wiser choices for managing Ontario’s forests (download three of them here)

In 1990, MNR forest research moved to the new OFRI building in Sault Ste. Marie, and a new chapter of innovation in forest research began.


Go to the OFRI homepage and publications page to read about recent research results!

 

Got questions? Check out OFRI’s FAQs or email OFRI.
 

 

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