Soil pH in Bay, MI: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Bay, MI

Typical topsoil in Bay, MI is pH 6.96, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Bay needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.2).
• Beds or pots instead: potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.96, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 278,817 surveyed acres in Bay, MI, 48% are alkaline (above 7.3), 31% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 18% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 3% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.2 to 8.2, a spread of 4 units across 179 soil components. No single class covers 60% of the county, so two gardens a few miles apart here can need opposite treatments. Test your own bed.

Clay, organic matter and rates

Topsoil here averages 13.2% clay and 3.55% organic matter, which this site treats as loam. Moving it one pH unit takes about 7 lb of lime or 2.3 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 38% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Bay against the rest of Michigan

pH 6.96 is 0.92 above the Michigan median of 6.04. 80 of 83 Michigan counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Macomb (6.8), Sanilac (6.91), Wayne (6.93), Tuscola (6.95), Saginaw (7.02), Huron (7.03).

The range in Michigan runs from Baraga at 4.72 to Huron at 7.03; Bay sits 97% of the way up.