Soil pH in Tunica, MS: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Tunica, MS

Typical topsoil in Tunica, MS is pH 5.95, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Tunica needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0), vegetable garden (off by 0), roses (off by 0), pink hydrangeas (off by 0).
• Lime: tomatoes 5.8 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.
• Sulfur: blueberries 3.4 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.4 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 5.95, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 275,124 surveyed acres in Tunica, MS, 42% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 41% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 17% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5 to 7.3, a spread of 2.3 units across 91 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 46.1% clay and 2.38% 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. 0% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Tunica against the rest of Mississippi

pH 5.95 is 0.8 above the Mississippi median of 5.15. 76 of 82 Mississippi counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Sunflower (5.75), Clay (5.76), Yazoo (5.79), Warren (5.92), Coahoma (6.1), Bolivar (6.28), Sharkey (6.33), Washington (6.34).

The range in Mississippi runs from Hancock at 4.85 to Issaquena at 6.73; Tunica sits 59% of the way up.