Raspberryflyer, I will be more polite and diplomatic in my answer... I just bought a PH meter for my daughter who is doing a science project concerning the acidity of soil. It's not an expensive model ($15.00 Canadian) and we were told it may not be accurate, but so far it's giving the readings which I expected. Dipped in vinegar which is highly acidic, the meter registers in the deep of the lower PH levels, and dipped in mucky ashes from the wood stove, the meter goes straight to the higher PH levels. So far we've tested potting soil, forest soil, garden soil, lawn soil, etc. and the readings are what I expected them to be. It appears to be working well. It's a simple meter with two prongs which are inserted into the muddy soil. In essence, you place the soil in a bottle, add water to make it muddy, then insert the meter and wait about 60 seconds. We kept the receipt just in case it didn't work, so you might want to do the same. It was bought at a garden center. Since the ground has started to freeze here, we were out on Sunday with a pick axe digging. You have to get soil from about 5 inches down. I am actually glad she chose this as her project this year. I have been wanting to buy such a meter for some time, and this gave me the right excuse. I have places on the property where blueberries grow and so I wish to keep the acidity at a high level. In the ornamental gardens, I'm looking for neutral soil. This meter will help me in achieving these goals. I truly hope I've helped in answering your question, and that you will not be discouraged from posting at this forum in the future due to the above response. Most folks here are kind in nature and quite helpful and do actually focus on the question at hand. Sincerely, Nicole.

Well, since you're talking turfgrass, your options are somewhat limited. There's really no practical way to increase the OM in the soil in the near term. Keep mulch mowing. According to the folks at OSU's REAL, you're in the right range except for high pH, very low P and somewhat low K (link below to their Acceptable levels for lawns). Your dilemma is lowering pH while increasing P. First, before you take anyone's advice I would encourage you to discuss the results with your local county Ag extension agent. He/she will have local knowledge and can better steer you than about anyone else. With that as a caveat, I believe what you want is an ammonium phosphate fertilizer (e.g. MAP @ 11-52-0 or DAP @ 18-46-0 ), and then separately potassium sulfate (sulfate of potash) to bring the K in line. All should be available from local ag/farm supply or feed stores. But, don't take my word for it - talk with your county agent first. Here is a link that might be useful: Interpreting a Soil Test for Lawns

1) Is there any tangible benefit in lowering my pH from 7.2 to the recommended 6.5? I wouldn't bother trying unless you have plants that show signs of iron chlorosis (yellow leaves with green veins). In that case, I'd treat the individual plants using sulfur buried in the soil. 2) Do I need to do anything about my lime %? From what I've read, lime is added to raise the pH, which is going in the wrong direction for my soil. I find it more than a little odd that you'd have a low level of lime. I wonder if you have calcium in other forms. I would not do anything about that unless it's causing problems. As you noted, adding lime will exacerbate the pH situation. 3) It seems like I could bump up both my N and OM by adding a few bags of steer manure. Does anybody have any numbers on %N by weight, or lbs N per cu ft, for composted steer manure? N will always show up on soil tests as low, unless you've just fertilized. N just doesn't stick around long in the soil. Steer manure, particularly the bagged stuff, is more of an amendment than a fertilizer, so you won't be adding much N with that. One caution on using manure in the intermountain west is that it can have relatively high salt levels and salinity can be a problem here due to the low rainfall (same thing that contributes to the high pH). I'd add shredded leaves from any trees (unless you're mulch mowing them), coffee grounds from Starbucks (or other coffee shops, but Starbucks has a corporate policy of making them available for free to gardeners), shredded tree trimming (some tree services will supply them for free), and anything else you can get for free. Note that if you spread 3 cu yds per 1000 sq ft all at once, you'll smother the lawn. If you use tree leaves and/or shredded trees, either spread them on top, or, if you incorporate them into the soil, add a nitrogen source so they'll decompose readily and not make N unavailable to the plants. If you use coffee grounds, don't spread them in layers more than about 1/2 inch thick, because they can crust over and repel water when they dry. Coffee grounds are a source of nitrogen (about 2.5% nitrogen).

Yeah ... lots of critical things to consider such as initial and changing pH effects*, buffering, multivalent cations, anionic and cationic micronutrients, and zeolite like ion exchange surfaces on soil particles, which make it a play day for chemistry discussions. Then the attack and breakdown of plant and animal litter to slow release nutrients brings up neat microbiology and biochemistry aspects. Material science then decides to manipulate the situation with osmotic release and diffusion of encapsulated nutrients. And hydroponic principles try to partially play nature taking over the hydrology and lighting it up. Physics kicks ideas in there on this last aspect. For instance did you know that fluorescent light indeed glow when struck by energy (as you know), but much of the light intensity flashes through a series of distinct colors at 60 times a second? * Plants cheat neatly by manipulating ion exchange release of cationic nutrients. They knock off ammonium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and other positively charged ions by producing acid(s) to knock it off. H+ alone can cause the exchange but if the acid is on a small organic base (anion) like oxalate this organic can diffuse around and pull at the cations on soil that the plant wants and help knock it off, helping in the "weathering" breakdown of soil too. Chelators made by plants and microbes make it really interesting too. They diffuse around and hold certain critical nutrients so tightly that the plant has the choice of finding more, having a deficiency (specific nutrient starving), making a stronger chelator to take it back, and/or breaking the chelator down to free the nutrient. Now the fun parts ... the plant one might be considering is not be alone. A group of similar or different roots might be working together AND competing in that patch of soil, with different players at different depths Trees cheat and certain non woody plants cheat and go low. Moles, gophers and field mice run through this soil zone toox playing their games. No soil contact then no nutrient uptake, no root then no nutrient collection there for the plant, loss of stored nutrients and need to spend energy replacing the root. And there are smaller life forms co-inhabating the soil with the roots that are also directly or indirectly effected by soil pH. Let's put them into three classes as those that (1) don't generally effect a plant much, (2) can hurt the plant, or (3) can help the plant. Let's see ... hurting a plant is bad, unless it hurts a seriously competitive plant more. Helping a plant is good, unless it's again that serious competitor. Plants are not stand alone organisms in naturem. They live in community with microorganisms. So what if the soil pH helps support the growth of a microbe that can grow all over your plants roots? Sounds bad I know, but there are those three classes mentioned above. If your microbe is a pathogen that is bad. If it doesn't attack the plant but runs out and breaks down nearby leaf litter, great free food. It it doesn't hurt your plant but by being on root surfaces can compete with and stop pathogenic microbes from getting a foothold, great a free natural inoculation for immunity. There was a company called Eden Bioscience a couple decades ago here in the PNW that made an interesting observation. In large scale evergreen seedling production for forestry sometimes there were large scale fungal blights. Sadly alot of the seedlings all died at once in mass. However, sometimes there were a few seedlings near each other that did not succumb! In fact they looked totally healthy! When isolating bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi from the surfaces of these plants they found that certain kinds could be grown in the lab that protected seedlings from attack, when sprayed onto them. These microbes grew best in their optimal pH range. They indeed colonized the plants, in this case leaf surfaces. And their presence did protect the leaves from pathogen attack. Obviously similar things must be happening in nature in the leaf canopy and also soil root zone of plants. So when a plant likes acidic pH 5 - 6 soil, is this just because nutrients are more available it? When I went to school, in what now seems like the dark ages, most plant physiology books focused almost solely on this. Or is it because beneficial microbes helping feed or protect the plant need that pH? My firm assumption is that both chemical and microbial pH dependent effects interact to make an optimum environment for that plant. And that some plants in the natural environment survive best, rather than grow best, at their optimal pH range. Why do many fungi sour (strongly acidify) what they are busy rotting? Niether competive microbes nor does the dieing plant tissue like it. The fungus gets more. This is exactly why you want to check the pH in the soil that you might be soon preparing for your new vegetable or herb garden this spring. Too basic, your plants starve. Too acidic, the pathogenic fungi don't starve. Then like the heirloom story of The Three Bears ... there's one pH that's just right.