Analysis of long-term average pollination periods of birch and cereal grass

Objective. To analyze the long-term average values of the birch and cereal pollination periods.

Relevance. Fluctuations in the concentration of pollen grains from allergenic plants in the air significantly affect allergy symptoms in sensitive patients, that is why aeropalynological monitoring is so important.

Materials and methods. An analysis of aeropallinological monitoring data for the city of Perm from 2010 to 2019 and in 2023 was carried out. For the birch and cereals, an assessment of the main pollination period was made based on 98% of the total annual number of pollen grains (MPP 98) and the pollination season (PS) according to the method of the European Academy of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (EAACI). Statistical processing of the obtained data was carried out using the following programs: Microsoft Excel® 2016 was applied for the calculation of the median total pollen grains concentration (p. g.) of the birch and cereals, the duration of pollination of these plants, Statistica 6 was used to determine the differences between median values based on the Mann-Whitney U-criterion.

Results. The median total pollen grains concentration of the birch per season was 19,478 [3,024; 32,094] p.g./m³, cereals – 522 [238; 916] p.g./m³, the median duration of the pollination period of the birch was 31 [22; 36] days, cereals – 35 [31; 49] days according to the EAACI method. Statistically significant differences were detected between the duration of cereal pollination when calculated using the MPP 98 and PS methods (p = 0.01).

Conclusions. High inter-seasonal variability in the total pollen grains concentration of allergenic plants was determined, the intensity of birch pollination per season in 2013 and 2014 differed by 35 times, that of cereals in 2015, 2016 – by 9 times.