I know lime takes a while to work, so we are trying to get our summer plots limed asap. Most of our summer plots are also used for our fall plots. We ended up having great luck with our fall plots so they are thick with grass right now. Plan is to lime the summer plots Saturday 02/11.

Question 1. is it ok to spread right on top of the grass, or do I need to spray/disc to kill the grass first? I would like to leave the grass if possible so the deer could continue using them.

Question 2. Should we go ahead and lime the plots we only plant in the fall at the same time or would it be best to wait a couple of months and apply the lime say in april/may?

If you don't disc it in and get some big rain events it can wash lime out of plot

the best time to lime is when you can. If you have a good stand of grass in the plots, it would be very unlikely for the lime to wash off of the field. If you lime soon, you can incorporate the lime into the soil when you prep the field if you're going to disc or till them

Don't overthink. Get the line out asap it will not wash away or anything else. You're fine how it is.

Lime it now. Applying lime over grass is fine and probably preferable so it won't wash away.

More lime quesions. Does anyone know the conversion rate for pelleted lime vs ag lime? I have a couple small plots and just gonna use pelletized lime

A few years ago I did a soil test on a .7 acre plot I have that didn't have good access and it needed lime. I bought all the pelleted lime the Co Op had that day, 900 pounds, and put it out with my 4wheeler. A year later I did another test and the results were the same as the previous year. Didn't make sense to me.

I think pelletized lime is a little less potent than ag lime due to the magnesium in it. But I don't think it's enough to alter the recommendation. If my soil test called for 1 ton, I'd try to add 1 ton. Please note that pelletized lime takes longer to work than ag lime. They are similar in strength, ag lime just works faster. That may give some folks the impression that ag lime is more potent.

What about liquid lime?????

thanks for the info...getting it out 2/11.

Not that is matters now, but...

Pelletized lime works FASTER than Ag lime. It seems counter intuitive, but that is how is works. Pelletized is limestone that is very finely ground into a powder and then bonded together into pellets. When the pellets get wet, they come apart and you are left with very finely ground limestone which can more quickly react with the soil. Ag lime is just crushed limestone and has a wide range of particle sizes. Ag lime takes longer to fully break down and therefore will "last" longer. You can get Ag lime with or without magnesium, depending on the type of limestone (dolomitic and calcitic limestone)

If you are putting pelletized down over existing fields, that works fine, but a good rain after application is beneficial.

We recently had a big lime spreader come in and do our food plot fields, right over the existing plants. I was surprised when they used a type of pelletized lime. 6 tons, delivered and spread, cost under $300.

How much does a ton of lime increase the ph level, example is 5.4 ph

Would 1 ton of lime raise it to a 6.4?

2 tons added would raise it above 7?

Anybody know?

They say only add one ton to the acre a year which should raise ph 1pt.

Short answer, no. pH calculations are exponential. That means a reading of 5.0 is 10 times more acidic than a reading of 6.0. So a 4.0 reading would be 100 times more acidic than a reading of 6.0. When you look at it that way, it's easy to see that 1 ton doesn't necessarily raise it by even increments. I don't know how the recommendations are calculated so I can't give you an estimate. I can say with confidence that spreading 2 tons would not raise your pH above 7 if it currently reads 5.4. A $7-$10 soil test should give you an accurate recommendation.

You can add more than 1 ton a year, just never add more than 3 tons at one time. As yelp said, a cheap soil test takes all the guess work out.

Good deal, the 5.4 ph is the result to the soil test. They recommend 103 lbs of lime per1000 sq ft. It's for a clover plot so it says desired ph is 7.0.

1/8 acre is the size

That's roughly 2 tons per acre. 4,000 pounds per acre times 1/8 acres is roughly 500 pounds. Pour it to it.

soil type makes a difference also. Takes more lime to raise ph in clay than it does in sandy soil

Yes, but clay holds pH better once its is gotten up. Sand will require more frequent applications. I'd rather have clay, break the hard pan, disc as fine as possible, and lime and fertilize per soil test.

I just this morning finished building some terraces. Sand on top of red clay. Moved the sand back and used the red clay for the terrace. Then mixed some red clay with the sand and put it where the sand only was. I'll see how that turns out.

I've got some plots with sure enough red clay, you could make bricks out of it. If it's wet you can't work it and if it's dry, it's like concrete. It will grow some serious clover however