8:57 a.m. Rains fueling a rough allergy season for ragweed sufferers

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Allergy sufferers in southwest Missouri may need to stock up on tissues as experts are predicting a worse-than-usual ragweed season.

“We’ve had so much rainfall this year, and with the abundance of moisture not only does the grass grow well but so do the weeds,” said Gaylord Moore, horticulture specialist with the University of Missouri Extension Service. “I can see a good crop of ragweed.”

The opportunistic plant grows in disturbed soil along roads and fences, but it’s also taking root in pastures thinned out by the recent years of drought, Moore said.

Ragweed typically blooms in mid-August and doesn’t peter out until temperatures reach the 40s.

The weather will have a big impact on how bad the allergy season will be with dry, windy weather carrying loads of the pollen far and wide. Rainy weather, on the other hand, reduces the amount of pollen in the air “so the count won’t be as high even though a lot (of pollen) is produced,” said Larry Dean, supervisor of the environmental laboratory at the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.

A healthy ragweed plant can produce up to 1 billion grains of pollen. While there are 21 varieties of ragweed in the U.S., two dominate southwest Missouri — a small version that grows up to three feet tall and one that towers at up to 16 feet tall.