Soil pH in Fort Bend, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Fort Bend, TX

Typical topsoil in Fort Bend, TX is pH 6.71, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Fort Bend 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 6.71, 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 478,572 surveyed acres in Fort Bend, TX, 47% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 24% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 23% are alkaline (above 7.3), 6% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.5 to 8.2, a spread of 3.7 units across 58 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 38.6% clay and 3.35% 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. 28% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Fort Bend against the rest of Texas

pH 6.71 is 0.72 below the Texas median of 7.43. 61 of 254 Texas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Matagorda (6.62), Lamar (6.68), Llano (6.68), Gonzales (6.7), Lavaca (6.71), Limestone (6.73), Wheeler (6.75), Clay (6.76).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Fort Bend sits 58% of the way up.