Soil pH in Phillips, AR: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Phillips, AR

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

What Phillips 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 3.7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 3.1 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 408,395 surveyed acres in Phillips, AR, 46% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 43% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 11% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5 to 7.3, a spread of 2.3 units across 55 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 28.1% clay and 1.74% 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. 0% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Phillips against the rest of Arkansas

pH 6.12 is 0.68 above the Arkansas median of 5.44. 72 of 75 Arkansas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Little River (5.95), Poinsett (5.97), Chicot (6.05), Monroe (6.05), Mississippi (6.32), Desha (6.33).

The range in Arkansas runs from Madison at 5.02 to Desha at 6.33; Phillips sits 84% of the way up.