Soil pH in Toole, MT: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Toole, MT

Typical topsoil in Toole, MT is pH 7.33 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 Toole 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 7.33, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 35% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,051,631 surveyed acres in Toole, MT, 64% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 36% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5.5 to 8.8, a spread of 3.3 units across 775 soil components. 64% 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 27.4% clay and 1.99% 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. 35% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Toole against the rest of Montana

pH 7.33 is right at the Montana median of 7.3. 30 of 56 Montana counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Fergus (7.28), Carbon (7.32), Liberty (7.32), Stillwater (7.33), Carter (7.34), Judith Basin (7.34), Petroleum (7.34), Broadwater (7.41).

The range in Montana runs from Flathead at 6.02 to Wheatland at 7.77; Toole sits 75% of the way up.