Soil pH in Traverse, MN: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Traverse, MN

Typical topsoil in Traverse, MN is pH 7.21, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Traverse needs, by plant

• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.2), vegetable garden (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0.2).
• Beds or pots instead: tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.21, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 365,164 surveyed acres in Traverse, MN, 73% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 27% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 6.1 to 8.2, a spread of 2.1 units across 367 soil components. 73% 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 29.3% clay and 5.02% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. At 5.02% 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. 38% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Traverse against the rest of Minnesota

pH 7.21 is 0.57 above the Minnesota median of 6.64. 74 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: Lyon (7.15), Yellow Medicine (7.17), Grant (7.19), Pennington (7.19), Lac qui Parle (7.22), Wilkin (7.28), Stevens (7.31), Red Lake (7.32).

The range in Minnesota runs from Cook at 5.21 to Swift at 7.49; Traverse sits 88% of the way up.