Soil pH in Saline, NE: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Saline, NE

Typical topsoil in Saline, NE is pH 6, 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, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.2).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 1.8 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6, 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 366,146 surveyed acres in Saline, NE, 84% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 16% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.5 to 7.9, a spread of 2.4 units across 190 soil components. 84% 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 25.5% clay and 2.62% 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 Nebraska

pH 6 is 0.75 below the Nebraska median of 6.75. 3 of 93 Nebraska counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Fillmore (5.88), Clay (5.94), York (5.98), Hamilton (6.04), Jefferson (6.09), Lancaster (6.09), Thayer (6.1).

The range in Nebraska runs from Fillmore at 5.88 to Scotts Bluff at 7.58; Saline sits 7% of the way up.