Soil pH in Saguache, CO: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Saguache, CO

Typical topsoil in Saguache, CO is pH 7.39 and calcareous, so sulfur won't lower it for long. For vegetable garden, choose alkaline-tolerant varieties and add compost rather than fighting the soil.

What Saguache needs, by plant

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

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 7.39, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 35% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,253,904 surveyed acres in Saguache, CO, 51% are alkaline (above 7.3), 32% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 17% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.6 to 10.1, a spread of 5.5 units across 301 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 18.2% clay and 10.94% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. At 10.94% organic matter the soil buffers like a heavier one, which pushes it into the clay bracket. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 35% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Saguache against the rest of Colorado

pH 7.39 is 0.22 above the Colorado median of 7.17. 43 of 63 Colorado counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Kit Carson (7.33), Cheyenne (7.35), Rio Blanco (7.36), Montezuma (7.39), Lincoln (7.41), Pitkin (7.44), Las Animas (7.48), Eagle (7.51).

The range in Colorado runs from San Juan at 5.53 to Alamosa at 8.28; Saguache sits 68% of the way up.