Soil pH in La Crosse, WI: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in La Crosse, WI

Typical topsoil in La Crosse, WI is pH 6.12, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What La Crosse needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1), potatoes (off by 0.1), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.12, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 271,637 surveyed acres in La Crosse, WI, 73% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 23% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 4% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 3.7 to 8, a spread of 4.3 units across 345 soil components. 73% 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 2.68% 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).

La Crosse against the rest of Wisconsin

pH 6.12 is right at the Wisconsin median of 6.08. 37 of 72 Wisconsin counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Oconto (6.06), St. Croix (6.06), Buffalo (6.08), Waupaca (6.09), Pepin (6.12), Richland (6.15), Waushara (6.15), Crawford (6.16).

The range in Wisconsin runs from Iron at 5.16 to Washington at 6.88; La Crosse sits 56% of the way up.