Soil pH in Shawano, WI: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Shawano, WI

Typical topsoil in Shawano, WI is pH 5.98, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Shawano needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0), vegetable garden (off by 0), tomatoes (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0), pink hydrangeas (off by 0).
• Sulfur: blueberries 1.2 lb/100 sq ft; blue hydrangeas 0.8 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 5.98, 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 531,147 surveyed acres in Shawano, WI, 53% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 30% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 16% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 3.9 to 7.5, a spread of 3.6 units across 376 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 9.1% clay and 2.82% organic matter, which this site treats as sandy. Moving it one pH unit takes about 3 lb of lime or 1.2 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 2% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Shawano against the rest of Wisconsin

pH 5.98 is 0.1 below the Wisconsin median of 6.08. 30 of 72 Wisconsin counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Portage (5.78), Chippewa (5.82), Monroe (5.84), Barron (5.9), Trempealeau (6), Dunn (6.06), Oconto (6.06), St. Croix (6.06).

The range in Wisconsin runs from Iron at 5.16 to Washington at 6.88; Shawano sits 48% of the way up.