Soil pH in Meade, SD: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Meade, SD

Typical topsoil in Meade, SD is pH 7.18, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Meade 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 7.18, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 2,211,985 surveyed acres in Meade, SD, 68% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 27% are alkaline (above 7.3), 5% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 1% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.5 to 8.8, a spread of 4.3 units across 1,126 soil components. 68% 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 30.1% clay and 2.14% 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. 31% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Meade against the rest of South Dakota

pH 7.18 is 0.19 above the South Dakota median of 6.99. 53 of 66 South Dakota counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Fall River (7.1), McPherson (7.12), Ziebach (7.13), Gregory (7.15), Campbell (7.2), Union (7.2), Butte (7.23), Custer (7.23).

The range in South Dakota runs from Lawrence at 6.49 to Jones at 7.47; Meade sits 70% of the way up.