Soil pH in Saline, IL: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Saline, IL

Typical topsoil in Saline, IL is pH 6.11, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Saline 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 6.11, 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 242,168 surveyed acres in Saline, IL, 55% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 34% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 11% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5 to 7.2, a spread of 2.2 units across 143 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 20.3% clay and 1.89% 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. 1% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Saline against the rest of Illinois

pH 6.11 is 0.29 below the Illinois median of 6.4. 8 of 102 Illinois counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Williamson (5.92), Pulaski (6.02), Union (6.02), Jefferson (6.03), Hamilton (6.13), Franklin (6.14), Edwards (6.17), Effingham (6.17).

The range in Illinois runs from Pope at 5.5 to Grundy at 6.75; Saline sits 49% of the way up.