Soil pH in Silver Bow, MT: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Silver Bow, MT

Typical topsoil in Silver Bow, MT is pH 6.3, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Silver Bow needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Sulfur: potatoes 1.8 lb/100 sq ft; blueberries 3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.3, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 406,275 surveyed acres in Silver Bow, MT, 56% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 33% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 8% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 2% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.2 to 8.2, a spread of 4 units across 3,069 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 15.7% clay and 2.79% 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. 3% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Silver Bow against the rest of Montana

pH 6.3 is 1 below the Montana median of 7.3. 5 of 56 Montana counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Ravalli (6.02), Lincoln (6.09), Mineral (6.1), Missoula (6.29), Park (6.31), Deer Lodge (6.33), Granite (6.37), Sanders (6.37).

The range in Montana runs from Flathead at 6.02 to Wheatland at 7.77; Silver Bow sits 16% of the way up.