Soil pH in Greene, TN: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Greene, TN

Typical topsoil in Greene, TN is pH 5.79, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Greene needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.2), vegetable garden (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0.2), pink hydrangeas (off by 0.2).
• Lime: tomatoes 4.9 lb/100 sq ft.
• Sulfur: blueberries 1.8 lb/100 sq ft; blue hydrangeas 1.2 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 5.79, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 336,763 surveyed acres in Greene, TN, 42% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 34% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 24% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 3 to 7.5, a spread of 4.5 units across 299 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 23.1% clay and 1.82% 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. None of the mapped components carry free carbonate.

Greene against the rest of Tennessee

pH 5.79 is 0.44 above the Tennessee median of 5.35. 83 of 95 Tennessee counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Sumner (5.68), Davidson (5.69), Marshall (5.76), Smith (5.76), Williamson (5.81), Maury (5.82), Bedford (5.85), Montgomery (5.88).

The range in Tennessee runs from Bledsoe at 4.78 to Lake at 6.59; Greene sits 56% of the way up.