Soil pH in Live Oak, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Live Oak, TX

Typical topsoil in Live Oak, TX is pH 7.67 and calcareous, so sulfur won't lower it for long. For vegetable garden, choose alkaline-tolerant varieties and add compost rather than fighting the soil.

What Live Oak needs, by plant

• Beds or pots instead: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 7.67, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 66% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 540,818 surveyed acres in Live Oak, TX, 75% are alkaline (above 7.3), 24% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 6.3 to 8.2, a spread of 1.9 units across 63 soil components. 75% 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 26.5% clay and 2.24% 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. 66% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Live Oak against the rest of Texas

pH 7.67 is 0.24 above the Texas median of 7.43. 181 of 254 Texas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: McLennan (7.65), Kimble (7.66), Webb (7.66), Dawson (7.67), Williamson (7.67), Briscoe (7.68), Martin (7.68), Menard (7.68).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Live Oak sits 85% of the way up.