Soil pH in Brule, SD: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Brule, SD

Typical topsoil in Brule, SD is pH 6.9, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Brule needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1).
• Beds or pots instead: potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.9, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 824,331 surveyed acres in Brule, SD, 63% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 21% are alkaline (above 7.3), 16% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6 to 8.8, a spread of 2.8 units across 445 soil components. 63% 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 30% clay and 3.2% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 36% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Brule against the rest of South Dakota

pH 6.9 is 0.09 below the South Dakota median of 6.99. 22 of 66 South Dakota counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Hyde (6.87), McCook (6.89), Minnehaha (6.89), Spink (6.89), Buffalo (6.9), Davison (6.91), Kingsbury (6.91), Jerauld (6.93).

The range in South Dakota runs from Lawrence at 6.49 to Jones at 7.47; Brule sits 42% of the way up.