Mobile slit sampler for pollen and spore sampling on motorways

Summary

Pollen allergic patients often develop severe symptoms during or after driving on English motorways, suggesting very high counts due to turbulence from vehicles disturbing the wayside grass which is usually allowed to pollenate. To investigate this hypothesis the author made a slit sampler which is mounted on the vehicle, and indicates directly in litres the amount of air sampled on to a vaseline coated slide. Grass pollen counts as high as 10,000/m³ have been found at the seasonal peak, and high concentrations of spores and pollution from particles of carbon from vehicle exhausts have been observed. The device can take serial samples and may prove useful in the study of the epidemiology of plant pathogens or air pollution with particulate matter.