Soil pH in Willacy, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Willacy, TX

Typical topsoil in Willacy, TX is pH 7.62 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 Willacy 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 7.62, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 56% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 359,239 surveyed acres in Willacy, TX, 60% are alkaline (above 7.3), 39% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 1% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 6.4 to 8.5, a spread of 2.1 units across 58 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 20.5% clay and 1.34% 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. 56% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Willacy against the rest of Texas

pH 7.62 is 0.19 above the Texas median of 7.43. 167 of 254 Texas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Carson (7.61), Garza (7.61), Foard (7.62), Hockley (7.62), Burnet (7.63), Donley (7.63), Hill (7.63), Knox (7.63).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Willacy sits 84% of the way up.