Around the world, three and a half million hectares – a few or many, ten million plots – are planted with insignia (Pinus radiata). In California, on the other hand, in its place of origin, it only has 8,000 hectares. In the Basque Country we have 150,000 donated, the largest area known in the northern hemisphere... Because there’s so much more here in Australia, Chile and New Zealand, it doesn’t catch pollen levels here. In the latter, 120-160 grains of pollen per cubic meter of air have been measured. 447 in Bilbao.

From time to time there are clouds of colossal pollen, and patients with allergies to pine pollen have appeared nowhere else. The pollen adheres to the nose, adheres to the sea, and releases the glycoproteins to know if it has reached the right place as it happens when it reaches the female flower, they sequester the breath. However, due to the fact that it is the most abundant pollen in the area, it is a source of few problems in proportion. By two routes: baga, the grain of pollen is large –between 50-90 microns– and it will not go much further through the nose and, biga, the lollobels and three of the genus Lolium, more popular among allergy sufferers, such as quercus tar and olive tree, the pine has a low protein content. Although this year has progressed, this pollen is present for about half a dozen weeks starting in the middle of February. And those who cannot see will also appear here. Why in the U.S. and nowhere else? Two reasons are given: the onset of allergy requires a lot of pollen – the highest levels in the world have been measured here – and, what is worse, as has been confirmed in Japan with cedar pollen, the impact on the roadsides, mixed with polluting particles produced by burning diesel, increases. Well, Gipuzkoa is said to be one of the territories that proportionally gives most of the land to pine trees and roads, approximately 27.7% and 2.5%, respectively.