Soil pH in Stafford, KS: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Stafford, KS

Typical topsoil in Stafford, KS is pH 6.22, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Stafford needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: potatoes (off by 0.2), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.2).
• Sulfur: blueberries 1.4 lb/100 sq ft; blue hydrangeas 1.2 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.22, 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 504,925 surveyed acres in Stafford, KS, 61% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 22% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 9% are alkaline (above 7.3), 8% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.7 to 8.7, a spread of 4 units across 226 soil components. 61% 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 9.7% clay and 1.15% 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. 5% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Stafford against the rest of Kansas

pH 6.22 is 0.35 below the Kansas median of 6.57. 17 of 105 Kansas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Nemaha (6.19), Anderson (6.2), Reno (6.21), Harvey (6.22), Allen (6.23), Johnson (6.23), Shawnee (6.23), Labette (6.24).

The range in Kansas runs from Cherokee at 5.95 to Wallace at 7.51; Stafford sits 17% of the way up.