Soil pH in Texas, OK: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Texas, OK

Typical topsoil in Texas, OK is pH 7.48 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 Texas 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 7.48, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 45% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,199,365 surveyed acres in Texas, OK, 69% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 31% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 6.8 to 8.5, a spread of 1.7 units across 74 soil components. 69% 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 23.1% clay and 1.58% 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. 45% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Texas against the rest of Oklahoma

pH 7.48 is 0.93 above the Oklahoma median of 6.55. 73 of 77 Oklahoma counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Harmon (7.4), Jackson (7.4), Dewey (7.41), Kiowa (7.41), Cimarron (7.49), Harper (7.49), Beaver (7.65).

The range in Oklahoma runs from Adair at 5.12 to Beaver at 7.65; Texas sits 93% of the way up.