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Dr. Kim Mulvihill ReportingA lot of people are suffering from hay fever and allergies; you might be one of them.
One suspected reason why allergies are getting worse has to do with what people are planting in their gardens.
The birds the bees - - the flowers the trees. Spring is in the air and for millions of people that means hay fever. And it's all because of pollen.
Thomas Ogren, Agricultural Scientist: "The entire tree is male, head to toe, it's all roped with male flowers. Each one of these flower clusters, which is called a catechine, may have up to a million grains of pollen."
Pollen counts and allergies seem to be on the rise. Thomas Ogren says a big part of the problem is there are just too many males around - male plants that is. He says, in an effort to have a maintenance-free landscape, we've created a pollen paradise.
Thomas Ogren: “You probably see some pollen come off of that, oh yeah there's plenty there. The drawback of the red is say it produces a lot of berries, and the berries fall on the sidewalk and people step on and they get squished. They're messy. They're messy, right. And the drawback of the male is it produces litter, but the litter is about 20 microns in size, each grain of pollen and you can't see it."
In his book 'Safe Sex in the Garden', Ogren says if you're suffering from allergies, look outside your window. 90-percent of the pollen falls right under the tree, and that may be enough to trigger allergies.
Fortunately, you can improve the air quality without having to sacrifice a beautiful male tree.
Thomas Ogren: “Another option would be to plant a female, a female right next to it to start trapping that pollen. Another option is to cut the tree back hard and to graft it with wood from a female tree to give it a sex change."
They’re changes that could help cut down on allergies for your family and your downwind neighbors as well.
Thomas Ogren: "I think we have an obligation to think about these things, particularly once we know about them."
Tom Ogren created the first plant-allergy ranking system, which is now used by the United States Department of Agriculture.
