Soil pH in Goshen, WY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Goshen, WY

Typical topsoil in Goshen, WY is pH 7.55 and calcareous, so sulfur won't lower it for long. For vegetable garden, choose alkaline-tolerant varieties and add compost rather than fighting the soil.

What Goshen needs, by plant

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

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 7.55, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 45% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,160,127 surveyed acres in Goshen, WY, 58% are alkaline (above 7.3), 42% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 6.3 to 8.8, a spread of 2.5 units across 462 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 11.5% clay and 1.47% 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. 45% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Goshen against the rest of Wyoming

pH 7.55 is 0.05 above the Wyoming median of 7.5. 12 of 23 Wyoming counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Laramie (7.42), Niobrara (7.42), Converse (7.5), Weston (7.5), Albany (7.58), Park (7.6), Natrona (7.64), Uinta (7.68).

The range in Wyoming runs from Teton at 6.19 to Carbon at 8.31; Goshen sits 64% of the way up.