Soil pH in Big Horn, WY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Big Horn, WY

Typical topsoil in Big Horn, WY is pH 7.76 and calcareous, so sulfur won't lower it for long. For vegetable garden, choose alkaline-tolerant varieties and add compost rather than fighting the soil.

What Big Horn needs, by plant

• Beds or pots instead: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 7.76, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 64% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,075,718 surveyed acres in Big Horn, WY, 76% are alkaline (above 7.3), 13% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 7% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 4% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5 to 9.6, a spread of 4.6 units across 296 soil components. 76% of the land falls in one class, so the county figure is a fair first guess for most yards here.

Clay, organic matter and rates

Topsoil here averages 22.5% clay and 1.23% 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. 64% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Big Horn against the rest of Wyoming

pH 7.76 is 0.26 above the Wyoming median of 7.5. 19 of 23 Wyoming counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Natrona (7.64), Uinta (7.68), Platte (7.69), Washakie (7.74), Fremont (7.85), Sweetwater (8.1), Carbon (8.31).

The range in Wyoming runs from Teton at 6.19 to Carbon at 8.31; Big Horn sits 74% of the way up.