Soil pH in Cottonwood, MN: Lime or Sulfur?
Typical topsoil pH in Cottonwood, MN
Typical topsoil in Cottonwood, MN is pH 6.72, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.
What Cottonwood needs, by plant
- Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.
- Just outside, test first: strawberries (off by 0.2), pink hydrangeas (off by 0.2).
- Sulfur: potatoes 4.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; blueberries 5.8 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 5.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; blue hydrangeas 5.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications.
What to do next
If your test lands near 6.72, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
How mixed the soil is
Of the 407,005 surveyed acres in Cottonwood, MN, 48% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 33% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 19% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.8 to 7.9, a spread of 2.1 units across 541 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 28.1% clay and 5.31% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. At 5.31% organic matter the soil buffers like a heavier one, which pushes it into the clay bracket. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 19% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).
Cottonwood against the rest of Minnesota
pH 6.72 is 0.08 above the Minnesota median of 6.64. 49 of 87 Minnesota counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.
Closest in pH within the state: Rock (6.67), Lake of the Woods (6.68), Stearns (6.69), Scott (6.7), Jackson (6.72), Otter Tail (6.73), Faribault (6.75), Brown (6.82).
The range in Minnesota runs from Cook at 5.21 to Swift at 7.49; Cottonwood sits 66% of the way up.