Soil pH in Lincoln, KS: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Lincoln, KS

Typical topsoil in Lincoln, KS is pH 6.88, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Lincoln needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1).
• Beds or pots instead: potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.88, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 456,062 surveyed acres in Lincoln, KS, 46% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 39% are alkaline (above 7.3), 15% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.7 to 8.5, a spread of 2.8 units across 137 soil components. No single class covers 60% of the county, so two gardens a few miles apart here can need opposite treatments. Test your own bed.

Clay, organic matter and rates

Topsoil here averages 24.2% clay and 2.51% 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. 38% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Lincoln against the rest of Kansas

pH 6.88 is 0.31 above the Kansas median of 6.57. 68 of 105 Kansas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Rush (6.8), Jewell (6.83), Ness (6.84), Phillips (6.84), Smith (6.88), Gray (6.9), Decatur (6.91), Mitchell (6.99).

The range in Kansas runs from Cherokee at 5.95 to Wallace at 7.51; Lincoln sits 60% of the way up.