Soil pH in Harrison, KY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Harrison, KY

Typical topsoil in Harrison, KY is pH 6.4, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Harrison needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Sulfur: potatoes 3.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blueberries 4.8 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 4.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; blue hydrangeas 4.1 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.4, 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 169,355 surveyed acres in Harrison, KY, 62% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 34% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 3% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 2% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.5 to 7.5, a spread of 3 units across 134 soil components. 62% 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 31.1% clay and 2.4% 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. 11% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Harrison against the rest of Kentucky

pH 6.4 is 0.61 above the Kentucky median of 5.79. 111 of 120 Kentucky counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Mercer (6.34), Nicholas (6.34), Bourbon (6.37), Fayette (6.39), Bath (6.43), Franklin (6.45), Anderson (6.47), Fulton (6.48).

The range in Kentucky runs from Greenup at 5.09 to Carroll at 6.63; Harrison sits 85% of the way up.