Is Soil Ph In Hardwoods Acidic Or Alkaline

The university of california advises that the accuracy of soil ph readings is plus or minus 0 5 ph units.

Is soil ph in hardwoods acidic or alkaline.

A soil with a ph number below 7 is acid while one with a ph above 7 is alkaline. Soils with a ph level that is higher than 7 are said to be alkaline such soils are suitable for growing plants that thrive in a sweet soil as opposed to a sour or acid soil if soil ph needs to be raised meaning the ground is not alkaline enough apply garden lime if on the other hand your soil has too much alkalinity you can lower the ph by applying a fertilizer that has sulfur. What happens when soil ph is too high. In other words your 7 5 soil may be anywhere between 7 0 and 8 0.

The ph scale indicates acidity or alkalinity. For us lay people it s enough to know that soil ph is a measure of how acidic or alkaline our soil is. While a soil ph around 6 5 is often considered ideal for plants many trees can grow well at soil ph values above 7. See illustration at left.

For plants that are especially sensitive to ph such as red maples an increase in ph from 6 0 to 6 5 can be enough to induce nutrient problems. Because it s a logarithmic scale each jump is a ten fold increase so a soil with a ph of 5 is 10 times more acidic than. Garden plants typically grow best in neutral or slightly acid soil ph 7 or slightly below. Most won t thrive in highly acid or highly alkaline soil though a few have adapted to such extremes.

Hundred times as acidic as a ph of 7.