Soil pH in Thurston, NE: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Thurston, NE

Typical topsoil in Thurston, NE is pH 6.93, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Thurston needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: potatoes 3.2 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; strawberries 2.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blueberries 4.4 lb/100 sq ft over 3 applications; azaleas and rhododendrons 3.9 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 3.9 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; pink hydrangeas 1.6 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.93, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 251,830 surveyed acres in Thurston, NE, 48% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 28% are alkaline (above 7.3), 24% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.4 to 8.2, a spread of 2.8 units across 202 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 26.1% clay and 2.79% 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. 29% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Thurston against the rest of Nebraska

pH 6.93 is 0.18 above the Nebraska median of 6.75. 68 of 93 Nebraska counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Burt (6.93), Colfax (6.93), Keith (6.93), Stanton (6.93), Frontier (6.97), Knox (6.97), Merrick (6.97), Dixon (7).

The range in Nebraska runs from Fillmore at 5.88 to Scotts Bluff at 7.58; Thurston sits 62% of the way up.