Agriculture Public Health, social science, writing

Bio:

Thomas Leo Ogren is a former nursery owner, landscaper, garden radio show host, and horticulture teacher. He is the author of six published books, including Allergy-Free Gardening, Safe Sex in the Garden, and the Allergy-Fighting Garden.

Tom does consulting for county asthma coalitions, the American Lung Association, the USDA, and the California Department of Public Health. His research on landscape plants and allergies has spanned some 30 years. He has an MS degree in Agriculture/Horticulture from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo.

Cities from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Auckland, New Zealand now use Tom’s work to lower urban pollen counts and allergies.

He wrote the chapter on allergy and landscape, for a new textbook on public health, called Nature and Human Health,

published 2018, from Oxford University Press.

His work has been favorably reviewed worldwide in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, including in media such as: The Discovery Channel, HGTV, NBC Evening News, the London Times, The New York Times, the BBC, the CBC, The New Scientist, Der Spiegel, Garden Design, Allergic Living, and National Public Radio.

Abstract:

Allergy and asthma rates are soaring and in cities the number one trigger for these illnesses is landscape-produced pollen. Although most city tree plantings today contribute to allergies and asthma, it is entirely possible to plant either low-pollen or even pollen-free urban landscapes. Many of the most commonly used tree cultivars are male clones, selected because they are seedless or fruitless. These "clean" trees are all heavy producers of allergenic pollen. Female trees, and parthenogenic, parthenocarpic, formal doubled, male sterile, permanent juvenility, or otherwise pollen-free selections are an important part of the solution to this current epidemic of allergies and asthma.

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