Bermuda Grass & Allergy Causing Pollen

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How To Reduce The Pollen In Your Lawn Grass

All grasses produce pollen ...
IF NON-MOWED AND ALLOWED TO FLOWER AND BLOOM OUT.

If a grass lawn is maintained and mowed on a regular basis, you don’t see blooms (thus no pollen produced) and any allergy issues are not because of the grass. Thus to avoid pollen you must do two things:

(1) Keep the grass properly watered and fertilized and healthy (free of diseases & bugs). Doing this keeps the grass from becoming under stress. Stress can make the plant want to reproduce (natures way of ensuring species survival).

(2) Keep the grass mowed regular so as to NOT allow the grass time to produce and send up seed heads.  Mowing frequency depends on the maintenance height of your grass lawn. The lower you mow, generally the more frequent you will have to mow again. Mowing frequency for most grasses is in the 5 to 7 day period. Some grass varieties can go longer between mowing. Site variables and usage also can affect mowing frequency. For instance most golf courses mow green height grasses every day! - some even mow twice a day / 7 days a week.

All pollen producing grasses can cause allergic reactions or allergies in some people, although not everyone is allergic to every type of grass – someone is more allergic to bluegrass, someone else (me) is more allergic to Bermuda grass. But then Bluegrass does not effect me, but someone else is deadly allergic to ryegrass and fescues while the others do not effect them – ETC. Thus different species of grasses may affect different people.

Very rarely is anyone allergic to the grass itself, the leaves and stems or even the proteins in the leaves – they are usually just allergic to the pollen if the flowers are allowed to grow up and bloom. The only way to have a truly pollen-free lawn is to keep it mowed or plant a sterile grass such as one of the sodded, non-seeded Tif Bermudagrass varieties such as Tifway 419 which can be found at www.lawnplugs.com .

MOST ALLERGIES caused during mowing of grass are actually NOT caused by the grass or its own flowers. A grass lawn acts as a filter and traps molds, dander, dust, pollutants, pollen (trees, shrubs, neighbors’ un-mowed grass, wind blown pollen, flowers, weeds, etc.) and all this trapped junk is stirred up during mowing and causes people to have allergy attacks.

Suggestions For Pollen Free Mowing

Recommended solution is to water the lawn the day BEFORE you mow – watering for a short period washes the trapped particles off the leaves and down to the soil and they can usually stick there and not get stirred into the air the next day when the grass is dry and you mow it. This generally works very well.

Best Seeded Bermudas for Sunny Lawns

YUKON and PRINCESS are the best choices in seeded Bermuda Grass varieties, IF you are capable of correct maintenance and mowing frequency to reduce pollen production.

Best Sod (Hybrid / Vegetative) Types

In a Sod Type most of the Hybrids work well.
Tifway 419 Bermudagrass Lawn Plugs -  one of the more popular varieties.

READ MORE ABOUT BERMUDAGRASS SEED HEADS & POLLEN ISSUES