Soil pH in Dakota, NE: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Dakota, NE

Typical topsoil in Dakota, NE is pH 7.24, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Dakota needs, by plant

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

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.24, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 168,325 surveyed acres in Dakota, NE, 47% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 40% are alkaline (above 7.3), 13% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.8 to 8.2, a spread of 2.4 units across 152 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 2.36% 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. 60% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Dakota against the rest of Nebraska

pH 7.24 is 0.49 above the Nebraska median of 6.75. 86 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: Cheyenne (7.15), Box Butte (7.17), Morrill (7.17), Hayes (7.18), Sioux (7.27), Hitchcock (7.3), Kimball (7.35), Banner (7.38).

The range in Nebraska runs from Fillmore at 5.88 to Scotts Bluff at 7.58; Dakota sits 80% of the way up.