Soil pH in Morgan, IN: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Morgan, IN

Typical topsoil in Morgan, IN is pH 6.23, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Morgan needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: potatoes (off by 0.2), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.2).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.8 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.23, 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 252,633 surveyed acres in Morgan, IN, 50% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 37% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 13% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 1% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.6 to 7.9, a spread of 3.3 units across 222 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 17.6% clay and 2.7% 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. 2% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Morgan against the rest of Indiana

pH 6.23 is 0.12 below the Indiana median of 6.35. 33 of 92 Indiana counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Sullivan (6.21), Dearborn (6.22), Posey (6.22), La Porte (6.23), Gibson (6.25), Ohio (6.26), Switzerland (6.27), Hancock (6.31).

The range in Indiana runs from Brown at 4.97 to Hamilton at 6.74; Morgan sits 71% of the way up.