Soil pH in Swift, MN: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Swift, MN

Typical topsoil in Swift, MN is pH 7.49 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 Swift 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 7.49, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 61% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 472,924 surveyed acres in Swift, MN, 59% are alkaline (above 7.3), 39% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 2% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6.1 to 8.2, a spread of 2.1 units across 325 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 24.3% clay and 5.36% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. At 5.36% organic matter the soil buffers like a heavier one, which pushes it into the clay bracket. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 61% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Swift against the rest of Minnesota

pH 7.49 is 0.85 above the Minnesota median of 6.64. 85 of 87 Minnesota counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Marshall (7.37), Polk (7.4), Clay (7.43), Norman (7.49).