Soil pH in Montgomery, KS: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Montgomery, KS

Typical topsoil in Montgomery, KS is pH 6.12, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Montgomery needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1), potatoes (off by 0.1), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.12, 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 405,141 surveyed acres in Montgomery, KS, 81% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 17% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 2% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.4 to 7.3, a spread of 1.9 units across 186 soil components. 81% 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 25.8% clay and 2.76% 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).

Montgomery against the rest of Kansas

pH 6.12 is 0.45 below the Kansas median of 6.57. 5 of 105 Kansas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Washington (6.05), Brown (6.06), McPherson (6.06), Crawford (6.12), Woodson (6.13), Republic (6.14), Rice (6.14), Jackson (6.15).

The range in Kansas runs from Cherokee at 5.95 to Wallace at 7.51; Montgomery sits 11% of the way up.