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21.8: Testing Soils for pH, Lime Needs

  • Page ID
    25248
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    Soil pH and how to change it was discussed in Chapter 20. If a soil’s pH is low, indicating that it is acid, one of the common ways to determine the amount of lime to be applied is to place a sample of soil in a chemical buffer and measure the amount the acid soil is able to depress the buffer’s pH. Keep in mind that this is different from the soil’s pH, which indicates whether liming is needed. The degree of change of the buffer’s pH is an indication of how much lime needs to be applied to raise the soil pH to the desired level.


    This page titled 21.8: Testing Soils for pH, Lime Needs is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Fred Magdoff & Harold van Es (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.