Soil pH in Cedar, NE: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Cedar, NE

Typical topsoil in Cedar, NE is pH 7.03, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Cedar needs, by plant

• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0), vegetable garden (off by 0), tomatoes (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0).
• Beds or pots instead: potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.03, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 473,036 surveyed acres in Cedar, NE, 50% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 37% are alkaline (above 7.3), 11% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 2% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.4 to 8.2, a spread of 2.8 units across 217 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 23.9% clay and 2.36% 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. 34% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Cedar against the rest of Nebraska

pH 7.03 is 0.28 above the Nebraska median of 6.75. 78 of 93 Nebraska counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Knox (6.97), Merrick (6.97), Dixon (7), Red Willow (7.02), Chase (7.08), Boyd (7.1), Deuel (7.12), Cheyenne (7.15).

The range in Nebraska runs from Fillmore at 5.88 to Scotts Bluff at 7.58; Cedar sits 68% of the way up.