Soil pH in Thomas, KS: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Thomas, KS

Typical topsoil in Thomas, KS is pH 7.13, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Thomas 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).
• Beds or pots instead: tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.13, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 687,397 surveyed acres in Thomas, KS, 69% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 27% are alkaline (above 7.3), 3% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6.3 to 8, a spread of 1.7 units across 46 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 22% clay and 2.14% 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. 30% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Thomas against the rest of Kansas

pH 7.13 is 0.56 above the Kansas median of 6.57. 78 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: Barber (7.06), Hodgeman (7.08), Graham (7.1), Meade (7.11), Osborne (7.15), Lane (7.16), Stevens (7.16), Comanche (7.19).

The range in Kansas runs from Cherokee at 5.95 to Wallace at 7.51; Thomas sits 76% of the way up.