Soil pH in Little River, AR: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Little River, AR

Typical topsoil in Little River, AR is pH 5.95, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Little River needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0), vegetable garden (off by 0), roses (off by 0), pink hydrangeas (off by 0).
• Lime: tomatoes 3.5 lb/100 sq ft.
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 1.6 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 5.95, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 301,657 surveyed acres in Little River, AR, 51% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 21% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 18% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 10% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.3 to 8, a spread of 3.7 units across 79 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 23% clay and 1.73% 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. 8% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Little River against the rest of Arkansas

pH 5.95 is 0.51 above the Arkansas median of 5.44. 68 of 75 Arkansas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Woodruff (5.84), Lee (5.9), Crittenden (5.94), Miller (5.94), Poinsett (5.97), Chicot (6.05), Monroe (6.05), Phillips (6.12).

The range in Arkansas runs from Madison at 5.02 to Desha at 6.33; Little River sits 71% of the way up.