Soil pH in Shackelford, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Shackelford, TX

Typical topsoil in Shackelford, TX is pH 7.85 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 Shackelford 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 7.85, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 90% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 526,000 surveyed acres in Shackelford, TX, 82% are alkaline (above 7.3), 18% are near neutral (6.5-7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.8 to 8.2, a spread of 2.4 units across 49 soil components. 82% 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 36.5% clay and 2.61% 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. 90% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Shackelford against the rest of Texas

pH 7.85 is 0.42 above the Texas median of 7.43. 222 of 254 Texas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Travis (7.84), Bell (7.85), Ellis (7.85), Midland (7.85), Schleicher (7.86), Hamilton (7.88), Starr (7.89), Uvalde (7.9).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Shackelford sits 90% of the way up.