Article: Places to Close In on Ragweed, but From a Distance - New York Times

PATTON'S first rule of war -- get the other poor blankety-blank before he gets you -- doesn't work with ragweed. It's too prolific, and a single plant's lightweight, allergenic spores, as many as one million a day, blow too far in the wind to let you solve your watering, itching and sneezing problems in your own backyard. Samples of ragweed pollen have been collected 400 miles at sea and 2 miles high, the National Institutes of Health says.But that doesn't mean giving up. One of Patton's other rules does apply: Know your enemy.To help with identification, the Plants Database of the federal Department of Agriculture (plants .usda.gov) gives profiles of more than 20 ragweed varieties, along ...

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