Soil pH in La Porte, IN: Lime or Sulfur?
Typical topsoil pH in La Porte, IN
Typical topsoil in La Porte, IN is pH 6.23, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.
What La Porte needs, by plant
- Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
- Just outside, test first: potatoes (off by 0.2), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.2).
- Sulfur: blueberries 2.8 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.
What to do next
If your test lands near 6.23, 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 351,503 surveyed acres in La Porte, IN, 69% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 24% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 4% are alkaline (above 7.3), 3% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.5 to 8.1, a spread of 3.6 units across 170 soil components. 69% 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 11.5% clay and 2.53% 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. 7% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).
La Porte against the rest of Indiana
pH 6.23 is 0.12 below the Indiana median of 6.35. 33 of 92 Indiana counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.
Closest in pH within the state: Knox (6.21), Sullivan (6.21), Dearborn (6.22), Posey (6.22), Morgan (6.23), Gibson (6.25), Ohio (6.26), Switzerland (6.27).
The range in Indiana runs from Brown at 4.97 to Hamilton at 6.74; La Porte sits 71% of the way up.