Soil pH in Sioux, NE: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Sioux, NE

Typical topsoil in Sioux, NE is pH 7.27 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 Sioux 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 7.27, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 40% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,321,784 surveyed acres in Sioux, NE, 62% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 38% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 6 to 9.2, a spread of 3.2 units across 347 soil components. 62% 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 13.7% clay and 1.72% 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. 40% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Sioux against the rest of Nebraska

pH 7.27 is 0.52 above the Nebraska median of 6.75. 87 of 93 Nebraska counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Box Butte (7.17), Morrill (7.17), Hayes (7.18), Dakota (7.24), Hitchcock (7.3), Kimball (7.35), Banner (7.38), Dawes (7.4).

The range in Nebraska runs from Fillmore at 5.88 to Scotts Bluff at 7.58; Sioux sits 82% of the way up.