Soil pH in Fond du Lac, WI: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Fond du Lac, WI

Typical topsoil in Fond du Lac, WI is pH 6.76, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Fond du Lac needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.
• Sulfur: potatoes 3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; strawberries 1.8 lb/100 sq ft; blueberries 4.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 3.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 3.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; pink hydrangeas 1.2 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.76, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 411,494 surveyed acres in Fond du Lac, WI, 88% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 6% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 4% are alkaline (above 7.3), 2% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.3 to 7.9, a spread of 2.6 units across 334 soil components. 88% 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 20.1% clay and 3.16% 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. 5% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Fond du Lac against the rest of Wisconsin

pH 6.76 is 0.68 above the Wisconsin median of 6.08. 60 of 72 Wisconsin counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Green Lake (6.69), Milwaukee (6.69), Outagamie (6.69), Brown (6.74), Kewaunee (6.76), Manitowoc (6.79), Waukesha (6.79), Dodge (6.8).

The range in Wisconsin runs from Iron at 5.16 to Washington at 6.88; Fond du Lac sits 93% of the way up.