How To Raise Soil pH In The Lawn // Which Lime To Use & How Much

[@TurfMechanic]

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[@BenjaminT.Minkler]

there has been so much research into soil chemistry due to farming; however most of that gets so technical and 'dry', or just boring and over the top for home lawns - so it is great to see this knowledge and 'how to'/why presented in a way that relates to us keeping a healthy and great performing yard, with just enough depth into the mechanics to give basic workable understanding without drowning us ....well done video! thank you

[@TurfMechanic]

That is awesome feedback! Thanks Ben :D Hope to continue delivering like that for a long time to come.

[@kkevinj1]

Thanks for teaching about lime so I wont buy the wrong kind and PH. I need a lil over 3 pallets of 50lb for 11,500 at PH of 3, I measured PH today after my probe came from Amazon. 3.0 totally explain why the grass got fungus so bad and weak in spots, I seeded Bermuda in the 105 heat during a drought and it almost all came in, cant believe how the new grass is growing so fast at 3.0. I had St Aug before the reno. Thanks

[@paulpugh2480]

Clear and concise,thanks for the info.

[@JamesDean53333]

Great content! Glad you ‘geeked out’ on this one! 👍

[@TurfMechanic]

so glad a bunch of you all enjoyed the geek session! :) Thanks for the watch and comment James!

[@cottydry]

Excellent in depth video on lime. My takeaway is that liming is probably more important than fertilization. My soil test came back with a PH of 5.5 and 138 PPM Magnesium. I just applied 50lbs/1K of pelletized garden lime. It sounds like I should do this annually. We have naturally acid soil here in the PNW.

[@TurfMechanic]

I'm right there with you, I'll probably be liming fairly regularly for as long as I'm in this house.

[@jconn5865]

So I just got a soil test back. Calcium good, magnesium good, but my ph is a bit low coming in at a 5.02. Macros seem pretty solid with nitrogen being the lowest however the micros have a few concerns. Which lime would you use to bump the ph up a bit ? I also noticed that for whatever reason my Fe (iron) is off the charts at a 113 (7-11 normal) and sulfur says 1.8 with 7-16 being normal. Would any of these readings be concerning to you ? Over the next few years I’ll be careful not to add too many iron rich products to the lawn but I’m not sure how to take the iron levels down. This also makes it difficult because I feel most applications have a good amount of iron in them milorganite/ironite/ as well as the majority of nitrogen fertilizers. Thanks for the great content and look forward to your upcoming videos.

[@allensadicario5196]

To rise the ph i use Jonathan green magic cal plus good stuff

[@BelowAverageSwardMan]

Great info! Good luck, and thanks!

[@TurfMechanic]

You are very welcome Mark, glad you found it helpful and I hope you have a great end to your winter season!

[@celworthy]

Great info!

[@TurfMechanic]

You are welcome Craig! Thanks for the watch and comment!

[@TurfandStem]

Great information! My lawn struggles from a low PH, but I'm slowly making progress. I'm going to have to try a few of these.

[@TurfMechanic]

It's not too complicated once you know what to do and not all that expensive either; I'm sure you'll get it under control if you really want to adjust things. Good luck this coming season!

[@desmorider747]

@turf mechanic My ph came back as 5.1, and my magnesium is at 95ppm, sulfur is 50ppm. Recommendation is to add 80lbs/1000sq of lime. Is it safe to add dolomitic lime, or is my magnesium too high? Thanks

[@lovehumble9696]

ooh ... and is the limestone something that is a yearly application ... or spring and fall

[@TurfMechanic]

if you need to raise ph then it is usually applied a couple times throughout the year like spring/fall but if you don't need to raise ph very much you could probably only do it once...and of course if you have optimal or nigh ph to start with then you wouldn't need to apply this stuff at all.

[@lovehumble9696]

hello... thank you for your video ... very well put together 🙏 ... is it safe to combine in equal parts the dolomite garden lime and the jobes garden lime ... ?)

[@TurfMechanic]

yeah, totally fine to combine them

[@Los714]

Jobes organic lime is the lime you recommend for lawns?

[@americantroy77]

My soil test reads good for all my levels but maybe 2 seasons ago 1 side of my front lawn basically stopped changing color when I fertilize. What do you think is happening when the lawn does not uptake fert?

[@TurfMechanic]

My first thought is it's a different grass type or variety that has a different base color...other than that maybe it's a watering issue (too much) or shade issue (too much)? consider those three things; if it's not one of those then I'd have to dive deeper.

[@bubba_lynn_crude]

Love your videos Bryan. I live in the PNW, my soil pH is low (5.45!), Mg is low end of normal, Ca is a bit high. Should I just add dolomite and not worry about getting excess calcium?

[@TurfMechanic]

If it was me, I'd just drop the dolomite now and then wait a couple months and then switch over to calcitic lime unless you wanted to do another soil test to confirm.

[@bubba_lynn_crude]

@@TurfMechanic I heard that dolomite can take like a year or more to fully break down into soil. Should I be concerned about adding more lime until I've given the dolomite enough time to do it's thing?

[@TurfMechanic]

@@bubba_lynn_crude if particle size is large then it can take a long time but it's easy to find dolomite lime that can pass through fine sieves. So long as the majority passes through a 50 mesh sieve or smaller (this should be labeled on bags) then it won't take that long by a lot. I have a bag of dolomite from home depot in my garage right now that clearly states 88% of the dolomite will pass through a 60 mesh, that's good enough for me and if it was 100% you'd hardly tell the difference imo.

[@bubba_lynn_crude]

@@TurfMechanic Thank you! You da man.

[@fadetoblack51]

I’ve gotten out of limeing recently. I need to get back on it as my soil is heavy clay

[@TurfMechanic]

yep, low pH with heavy clay means more lime is probably necessary - saving grace however is that nutrients leech out of clay less dramatically; didn't touch on that in the video though. :)

[@chadderstar6880]

So my soil test showed low sodium. Any thing in particular I should do about that? or no big deal...?

[@TurfMechanic]

Not a big deal, there is only a miniature benefit to salt-tollerant grass types for having a bit of extra Na in the soil. Not worth worrying about imo.

[@chadderstar6880]

@Turf Mechanic Don't worry about it? I'm way ahead of you haha.

[@harperexplores9349]

So if I have high Magnesium and High Calcium at 5.3 PH? What do I use?

[@kkevinj1]

um the one without mag

[@NpgSymboL]

😂

[@jibboom2112]

I've got super high Calcium and Magnesium, yet my PH is 5.5. what gives??

[@SmooveBee1]

Giant Cat in the foreground.