Soil pH in Le Flore, OK: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Le Flore, OK

Typical topsoil in Le Flore, OK is pH 5.54, too acidic for vegetable garden. Expect roughly 7 lb of lime per 100 sq ft, but only after a soil test confirms it.

What Le Flore needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: blueberries (off by 0), blue hydrangeas (off by 0).
• Lime: lawn (cool-season grass) 7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; vegetable garden 7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; tomatoes 7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; roses 7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; pink hydrangeas 4.9 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 5.54, spread about 70 lb of ground limestone per 1,000 sq ft of vegetable bed in 2 doses, ideally in fall.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 983,596 surveyed acres in Le Flore, OK, 63% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 28% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 8% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 1% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.6 to 7.9, a spread of 3.3 units across 255 soil components. 63% 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 17.7% clay and 1.31% 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. 2% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Le Flore against the rest of Oklahoma

pH 5.54 is 1.01 below the Oklahoma median of 6.55. 5 of 77 Oklahoma counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Delaware (5.14), Cherokee (5.2), Latimer (5.47), Haskell (5.5), Pushmataha (5.55), McCurtain (5.59), Mayes (5.63), Ottawa (5.63).

The range in Oklahoma runs from Adair at 5.12 to Beaver at 7.65; Le Flore sits 17% of the way up.