Soil pH in Lincoln, WY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Lincoln, WY

Typical topsoil in Lincoln, WY is pH 6.56, 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, tomatoes, roses.
• Just outside, test first: strawberries (off by 0.1), pink hydrangeas (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: potatoes 2.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blueberries 3.7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.56, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 19,011 surveyed acres in Lincoln, WY, 47% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 45% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 7% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.6 to 7.9, a spread of 2.3 units across 131 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 16.9% clay and 3.6% 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. 9% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Lincoln against the rest of Wyoming

pH 6.56 is 0.94 below the Wyoming median of 7.5. 1 of 23 Wyoming counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Teton (6.19), Sublette (6.97), Crook (7.06), Sheridan (7.25), Hot Springs (7.34).

The range in Wyoming runs from Teton at 6.19 to Carbon at 8.31; Lincoln sits 17% of the way up.