Soil pH: What It Measures & How It Affects Your North MS Lawn

You desire a lush green lawn, which is perfectly fine.

However, you might not have considered that inspecting beneath the surface is essential for a healthier, thicker grass spread.

The soil beneath your grass plays a crucial role in its vitality, especially for lawns in Tupelo, Oxford & New Albany, MS. Poor soil conditions—such as a lack of organic matter, compaction, or an imbalanced pH—can affect growth.

But how can you tell? Since soil doesn't complain, you need to find other ways to assess its health.

You perform a soil test. A soil test is one of the best tools available to see what’s happening beneath your lawn where the roots are. It reveals various details, including soil pH, an important aspect of soil health.

Let’s discuss lawn soil testing, how to test soil pH, and professional soil testing so you can better understand how soil pH affects your lawn and what steps you can take to improve it.

Lawn Soil Testing Basics

When you hire a lawn care professional to maintain your lawn, and they suggest doing a soil test as part of their program, you know they are looking into the health of your soil as a way to improve your grass. And this is a good thing.

Lawn soil testing provides you with some amazing details about what’s happening beneath your lawn and what you see above ground. Here are some key insights you learn through lawn soil testing.

Soil Test Timing

Good news: You can conduct lawn soil testing at any time of year.

The only thing limiting your ability to conduct a soil test is excess soil moisture. You should never take a fully saturated soil sample. For best results, your soil should be mostly dry.

It’s not necessary to get a soil test before starting a lawn care fertilization program. A reputable lawn care professional may even include a soil test as part of their services, allowing them to gain information about your soil.

Lawn & Pest Solutions conducts soil testing every three years on lawns and on an as-needed basis if a problem is identified. We sample from various areas of the lawn to obtain a comprehensive cross-section of soil and send our samples to a professional laboratory. If we see areas that are worse than others, we can sample two or more areas and compare the nutrient and pH levels.

Know Your Soil pH

One of the key facts lawn soil testing tells you is your soil pH.

Why does soil pH matter? You want your lawn soil to be in a pH range that puts it in an ideal position to take in nutrients. North Mississippi lawn soils thrive in a pH range between 6.0 and 6.5.

Lawns in different locations and different environmental conditions will have different pH ranges.

A shaded lawn typically has a low soil pH. And if that lawn is growing under nut-bearing trees, such as hickory, oak or pecan, this can reduce soil pH over time. Pine trees are prevalent in the South, and they also thrive in low soil pH levels.

Our soils tend to be on the acidic side, so if your soil isn’t in the optimum range, it’s usually low. An acidic soil binds essential nutrients to the point that the turf or plants cannot utilize them. In other words, if the soil is acidic, grass will not grow correctly or be as green as you would like it to be.

Lime applications can help bring your soil to the ideal pH level. Maintenance lime applications are part of lawn care programs, but if your pH level is excessively low, opting for corrective lime applications can help restore your soil to the right pH levels.

Conducting a soil test beforehand can help direct your lime applications. Sulfur can help increase acidity in lawns, but lowering a high soil pH is a pretty slow process.

Do Lawns Have Different pH Needs Than Trees and Shrubs?

Yes, some plants have different pH needs, and lawn soil testing can show this.

For instance, azalea, rhododendrons and hollies thrive in acidic soils. 
When it comes to grasses, centipede grass grows well in acidic soil, but Bermuda, zoysia, fescue and St. Augustine grasses prefer a neutral pH.

What Else Can Lawn Soil Testing Show?

Another key nutrient to identify in lawn soil testing is potassium. Although nitrogen is vital for growing warm-season grasses, it's also important to monitor potassium levels.

Potassium regulates cold tolerance and also affects root growth. Poor root growth leads to weak grass in cold, heat or drought conditions.

Learn More About Lawn Soil Testing With Help from the Pros

To get a great-looking lawn, you need to know more than just what’s happening above ground. You need to look beneath your lawn to see what lies beneath.

Professional soil testing can help you gain insights into why your fertilization efforts might not be effective, why your lawn is not thriving, or provide reasons for adjusting pH levels in the soil.

We hope our data about soil tests and pH levels helps you better understand their importance in an overall lawn care program.

If you’re still unsure whether pH levels are affecting your lawn, contact Lawn & Pest Solutions. We can help you understand what your North Mississippi lawn needs and offer suggestions to improve its appearance and health.

Looking to improve the look of your lawn in Tupelo, Oxford & New Albany, MS? We’d love to help. Get started today with a free quote. Together, we’ll prepare a customized plan so you can have the kind of lawn you love.