Soil pH in Marshall, OK: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Marshall, OK

Typical topsoil in Marshall, OK is pH 7.17, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Marshall needs, by plant

• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.2), vegetable garden (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0.2).
• Beds or pots instead: tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.17, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 227,232 surveyed acres in Marshall, OK, 43% are alkaline (above 7.3), 35% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 23% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.3 to 8.2, a spread of 2.9 units across 52 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 29.1% clay and 1.46% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 46% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Marshall against the rest of Oklahoma

pH 7.17 is 0.62 above the Oklahoma median of 6.55. 59 of 77 Oklahoma counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Blaine (6.91), Murray (6.92), Major (7.06), Woodward (7.11), Roger Mills (7.22), Beckham (7.28), Cotton (7.31), Ellis (7.32).

The range in Oklahoma runs from Adair at 5.12 to Beaver at 7.65; Marshall sits 81% of the way up.