Pollen marks beginning of allergy season: The potent mixes getting up everyone's noses

Lots of coughing, feeling "really sinusy", breaking out the inhaler, and a car that looks like it has "been through a dust storm".

The symptoms experienced by Te Puke resident Vanessa Orr mark the arrival of allergy season as a "nationally massive cloud of pine pollen" swirls around, along with a host of other spring irritants.

This year's allergy season started earlier than normal according to Allergy NZ and therefore would be longer too.

Cars have been showered and pavement cracks painted with the sulphur-yellow powder but for allergy sufferers, the mix of pollens can aggravate noses, eyes, throats and sinuses.

Te Puke resident Vanessa Orr's car adorned with pine pollen. Photo / Supplied

Orr was among allergy sufferers for whom asthma was triggered.

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"I get really sensitive to it this time of year."

She believed it had gotten worse for her earlier than usual and was taken aback by how thick the pollen had been settling, particularly on her car.

Dr David Fountain is a pollen forecaster who works in association with Metservice and says the yellow dust is being spread by wind across the motu (country).

"It's right on time - late July, early to mid-August - and is released from pine trees in prodigious amounts. It is everywhere at present."

Sore eyes, raw throat? Hay fever season has begun. Photo / 123rf

He said it was about halfway through the 2022 edition of the annual release of this "mildly allergenic pollen into the Aotearoa-New Zealand air".

Fountain has predicted and forecasted the pollen seasons for 30 years and, as an associate professor in plant biology at Massey University, he worked on the aerobiology and biochemistry of the allergens of pollens that cause hay fever and sometimes asthma in roughly one in every five people.

"The dramatic appearance of yellow dust in late winter marks the arrival of a nationally-massive cloud of pine pollen that is a controlled shed from flowering pine trees over a two to four-week period each year."

Macrocarpa was also in the mix, and its arrival marked the start of the hay fever season. It is followed by acacia and deciduous trees, which many are allergic to.

From September to December, more potent grass pollen fills the air we breathe, Fountain said.

"Very many of us find this period of the year difficult due to sneezing, running nose and eyes and scratchy throat, and for some, asthma can be provoked."

Right now, pine plantations or Japanese cedar shelter belts could be the culprit in the region, but Fountain said the confirmation was needed by way of a skin patch test to eliminate other potential allergens.

Pharmacist and owner of Unichem Rotorua Central Pharmacy David Honore said the number of people coming in needing help with hay fever was no different to any other year, and the timing was about right.

He said antihistamines were the best treatment.

"All I know is there are plenty of people with allergies. A lot of people suffer."

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Allergy NZ chief executive Mark Dixon said the allergy season had started a few weeks earlier than normal, and as such, would be longer.

While it was the pine pollen everyone was seeing, it was far more likely to be grass pollens that were making people sneeze and itch, he said.

About 30 per cent of New Zealand families had someone who suffered from allergies and the long-lasting impacts of hay fever can wear people down.

Dixon said the best thing sufferers could do was to visit their GP and figure out exactly what they were allergic to.

There was a calendar on its website that helped to pinpoint what allergens were present at what time of year called the AllergyNZ Pollen Calendar.

Scion principal scientist Dr Tim Payn said if you live downwind of a pine forest, then it is inevitable you will see pollen colouring puddles and coating your car or other outdoor surfaces during this time of year.

The pollen is released by male pollen cones and carried by the wind. After pollen makes contact with the ovules in female seed cones, fertilisation occurs, resulting in a female seed. When it lands on a compatible female pine catkin, pollination, or fertilisation, takes place. The tree then produces pine cones filled with seeds.

Scion principal scientist Dr Tim Payn. Photo / Supplied

Payn said a mature Pinus radiata tree can produce between 500g and 750g of pollen each year.

At a typical 400 trees per hectare, this is equivalent to up to 300kg per hectare per year. Pollen travels less than 700m but in windy areas will travel further.

"There is no evidence to suggest there are greater quantities of pollen in the environment this year than in previous years.

"Pine trees are frequently blamed for causing hay fever, however, pine pollen only affects a very small proportion of people with allergies."

Payn said this was due to its relatively large size and waxy coating, which stopped the protein from leaking out and causing an allergic reaction.

Much smaller grass pollen was "much more likely" to penetrate deeper into the respiratory system and cause a reaction, he said.

Pollen forecasts can be found on the MetService website.