Soil pH in Stanley, SD: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Stanley, SD

Typical topsoil in Stanley, SD is pH 7.38 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 Stanley 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 7.38, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 74% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 925,947 surveyed acres in Stanley, SD, 64% are alkaline (above 7.3), 30% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 5% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6 to 8.4, a spread of 2.4 units across 336 soil components. 64% 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 50% clay and 2.72% 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. 74% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Stanley against the rest of South Dakota

pH 7.38 is 0.39 above the South Dakota median of 6.99. 61 of 66 South Dakota counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Custer (7.23), Dewey (7.28), Lyman (7.28), Jackson (7.32), Oglala Lakota (7.39), Mellette (7.43), Haakon (7.44), Jones (7.47).

The range in South Dakota runs from Lawrence at 6.49 to Jones at 7.47; Stanley sits 91% of the way up.