Soil pH in Wayne, NY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Wayne, NY

Typical topsoil in Wayne, NY is pH 6.13, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Wayne needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: tomatoes (off by 0.1), potatoes (off by 0.1), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.1).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.5 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.1 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.13, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 313,960 surveyed acres in Wayne, NY, 57% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 32% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 10% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 1% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 5 to 8.2, a spread of 3.2 units across 170 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 16.4% clay and 4.53% 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. 1% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Wayne against the rest of New York

pH 6.13 is 0.36 above the New York median of 5.77. 44 of 62 New York counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Wyoming (5.91), Tompkins (5.99), Erie (6.02), Yates (6.1), Jefferson (6.16), Livingston (6.19), Madison (6.25), Monroe (6.25).

The range in New York runs from Hamilton at 4.72 to Kings at 7.15; Wayne sits 58% of the way up.