Soil pH in Sutter, CA: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Sutter, CA

Typical topsoil in Sutter, CA is pH 7.1, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Sutter needs, by plant

• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.1), vegetable garden (off by 0.1), roses (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: tomatoes 2 lb/100 sq ft; potatoes 5.4 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; strawberries 3.7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blueberries 7.1 lb/100 sq ft over 4 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 6.1 lb/100 sq ft over 4 applications; blue hydrangeas 6.1 lb/100 sq ft over 4 applications; pink hydrangeas 2.7 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.1, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 313,050 surveyed acres in Sutter, CA, 47% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 41% are alkaline (above 7.3), 12% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6.1 to 8.7, a spread of 2.6 units across 95 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 32% clay and 1.78% 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. 8% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Sutter against the rest of California

pH 7.1 is 0.56 above the California median of 6.54. 46 of 58 California counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Colusa (6.89), Yolo (6.9), Stanislaus (6.96), Modoc (7.04), Orange (7.12), San Luis Obispo (7.12), Riverside (7.15), Ventura (7.22).

The range in California runs from Del Norte at 5.43 to Imperial at 8.16; Sutter sits 61% of the way up.