It’s Ragweed Season, and Allergies Are on the Way!

Unfortunate are those who suffer from allergies and find themselves in an environment where ragweed is present. If you are one of the unlucky ones, you know that you don’t need to have this plant in your field of vision to feel its allergic effects. The plant itself is not the problem. It’s the pollen that causes the problem. And when it comes to producing pollen, ragweed is second to none.

Ambrosia artemisiifolia is its Latin name! Even if you know it, that doesn’t make you immune to its pollen, which affects around 20% of the population. Personally, I’m one of the lucky 80%, and I sympathize with you, the less fortunate! I remember when I was 15, I had to mow a field full of ragweed that was at least 1.25 m high (4 feet). I was covered in pollen! The tractor’s air filter had to be changed because there was so much pollen in it. If I had been allergic, I would have died at the end of the field!

August is when the plant flowers and produces pollen. The lightness of this pollen makes it easy to be carried by the wind. However, this plant is monoecious, meaning that it has both sexes on the same plant. It makes you wonder why it produces so much pollen and sends it into the air when the female part is only a few millimeters away from the male part that produces the pollen. But here’s the thing: wind pollination is much less efficient than insect pollination. The plant therefore compensates with quantity, just to stack the odds in its favor.

Okay, Now What Do We Do With This?

First and foremost, I would like to share with you my environmental perspective on this topic, as I usually do. There is nothing better than understanding the processes that nature uses and the environmental laws that govern them.

First, ragweed is an annual plant. The characteristic of an annual plant is that it completes its life cycle in one growing season. All annuals begin with a seed that germinates, grows rapidly during the warm season, and flowers and produces seeds before winter so that they are ready to germinate the following spring.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

It is noticeable that, in nature, no surface remains bare for very long. Some say that nature abhors a vacuum, and this is true! Nature has developed an ingenious mechanism to always cover land surfaces that are or would be exposed. Its allies in this endeavor are plants, each of which has a specific role to play depending on the conditions. I call this protective mechanism “Garments of the Earth.” The goal is to protect the soil so that it remains fertile or becomes fertile over time, and plants play this role.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense, because if soil is left bare, it will become depleted, eroded by wind and rain, overheated by the sun, and dry out, making it infertile for life in the earth and for the plants that feed on it. Since nothing is left to chance and everything depends on everything else in nature, plants have every reason to protect the soil, because the soil needs them to remain fertile in order to feed them. It’s a win-win exchange where all life in the ecosystem benefits.

Garments of the Earth

When soil is bare, this mechanism kicks in to achieve the ultimate goal of establishing permanent vegetation cover as quickly as possible. The type of plants and the time they need to colonize the space until permanent vegetation cover is established will depend on environmental conditions. However, the process is always the same. Over time, annual herbaceous plants are established, followed by perennial herbaceous plants, shrubs, and finally forest plants.

Annual plants are therefore nature’s army of plants, favored because they establish themselves quickly, completing their life cycle in a single season. Annuals are used to protect bare soil until perennial herbaceous plants have established themselves over the entire surface. The proof: do you see any annuals in a wild meadow? They will only grow on bare soil.

In Summary

First year:

• Germination of annuals and perennials
• Rapid growth of annuals to cover the ground and produce new seeds, while perennials establish themselves underneath.

Second year:

• Germination of annuals in spaces not yet occupied by perennials.
• Growth and flowering of perennials, which increasingly occupy the space.

Third year:

• In principle, the meadow is composed entirely of perennials.
• There are no annuals, but the soil is filled with countless seeds that can germinate if the soil is exposed again in certain areas.

The Role of Ragweed

By understanding this cycle, we can better understand why ragweed is present and what role it plays in specific locations. It will only be present in bare areas, particularly on arid, poor, and sunny surfaces. It is not impossible that it may be present on better quality soil, but it will compete with other annual plants, whereas it has an advantage on bare surfaces where the soil is poor and uncultivated.

Its role in nature is therefore not to make us sneeze, but to fill in areas that would otherwise remain bare. Over time, its rapid growth adds organic matter to the soil, attracting earthworms and an entire ecosystem that will eventually allow other plants to grow.

Cover Ground

All this to say that if you just pull up the ragweed, you’ll solve the problem for the moment, but it will come back if the bare ground remains bare. You therefore need to cover the area with perennial plants or mulch to prevent ragweed seeds from germinating.

Just like all seeds that are produced and distributed randomly on the ground, ragweed seeds are also a form of “ground cover insurance.” Thanks to this diversity of seeds, nature ensures that bare ground is always protected.
This logic applies to everyone, not just those who suffer from ragweed allergies. If we all take care to avoid leaving soil bare, everyone will benefit, because if ragweed doesn’t grow, other types of plants that we consider weeds will.