Soil pH in Itawamba, MS: Lime or Sulfur?
Typical topsoil pH in Itawamba, MS
Typical topsoil in Itawamba, MS is pH 4.98, too acidic for vegetable garden. Expect roughly 10.5 lb of lime per 100 sq ft, but only after a soil test confirms it.
What Itawamba needs, by plant
- Already in range: blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
- Just outside, test first: potatoes (off by 0), blue hydrangeas (off by 0).
- Lime: lawn (cool-season grass) 10.5 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; vegetable garden 10.5 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; tomatoes 10.5 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; strawberries 7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; roses 10.5 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; pink hydrangeas 9.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.
What to do next
If your test confirms pH near 4.98, spread about 105 lb of ground limestone per 1,000 sq ft of vegetable bed in 3 doses, ideally in fall.
How mixed the soil is
Of the 334,949 surveyed acres in Itawamba, MS, 97% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 1% are alkaline (above 7.3), 1% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 1% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.5 to 7.5, a spread of 3 units across 76 soil components. 97% 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 13.1% clay and 1.5% 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. 1% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).
Itawamba against the rest of Mississippi
pH 4.98 is 0.17 below the Mississippi median of 5.15. 6 of 82 Mississippi counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.
Closest in pH within the state: Jones (4.93), Harrison (4.94), Tishomingo (4.95), Stone (4.96), Jefferson Davis (4.98), Pearl River (4.99), Lauderdale (5), Neshoba (5).
The range in Mississippi runs from Hancock at 4.85 to Issaquena at 6.73; Itawamba sits 7% of the way up.