Soil pH in Emmet, IA: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Emmet, IA

Typical topsoil in Emmet, IA is pH 6.73, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Emmet 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).
• Beds or pots instead: potatoes, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.73, 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 248,826 surveyed acres in Emmet, IA, 43% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 29% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 29% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.9 to 7.9, a spread of 2 units across 197 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 28.6% clay and 5.78% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. At 5.78% 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. 33% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Emmet against the rest of Iowa

pH 6.73 is 0.37 above the Iowa median of 6.36. 89 of 99 Iowa counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Webster (6.65), Palo Alto (6.7), Wright (6.7), Winnebago (6.72), Pocahontas (6.73), Hamilton (6.74), Boone (6.76), Kossuth (6.78).

The range in Iowa runs from Van Buren at 6.02 to Monona at 7.11; Emmet sits 65% of the way up.