Soil pH in Lorain, OH: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Lorain, OH

Typical topsoil in Lorain, OH is pH 5.99, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Lorain 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), tomatoes (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0), pink hydrangeas (off by 0).
• 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 5.99, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 294,840 surveyed acres in Lorain, OH, 79% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 14% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 7% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.6 to 7, a spread of 2.4 units across 169 soil components. 79% 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 22.2% clay and 3.38% 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. 0% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Lorain against the rest of Ohio

pH 5.99 is 0.09 below the Ohio median of 6.08. 38 of 88 Ohio counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Brown (5.9), Trumbull (5.9), Harrison (5.96), Medina (5.96), Clermont (6), Richland (6.01), Ross (6.01), Licking (6.02).

The range in Ohio runs from Monroe at 5.02 to Wood at 6.6; Lorain sits 61% of the way up.