The Art of Liming Biointensive beds

Good morning, evening or afternoon or even night, whereever you are living on this beautiful pearl.

So, I'm building biointensive beds.

My soil PH is 5.1.

So I'm buying dolomitic limestone, granulated.

A standard bed is 2m x 5m. So 10m2. Or 108 square feet.

I'm getting the dolomitic lime by 20kg bags. It's either that, or the 32 tons truck. I have 3 acres, and don't intend to build myself a limestone castle in my free time. Although it would be pretty awesome.

On the soil test sheet, they recommence 10 tons per hectare.
so 20 000 pounds per hectare. Or 20 000 pounds for approx. 108 000 sqf2

So 0,185185185185 pound for every square foot.

Or ... BOOM. Straight 20 pounds per bed.

Bags are 20kg. 44 pounds.

So only half a bag per bed would be consistent with the recommendation of the lab? Not that I don't trust them, but I was more inclined to go ahead with a full bag. Half for the deeper layer of the double dig, half for the top.

Charles-playing-soil-wizard

I recommend using half the bag and then doing a pH test about a week after application.

I am not sure liming deep is a good idea, the lime is going to sink in over time and you may turn your deep soil alkaline if you use half deep and half on top.
You should be able to get a decent pH meter at a nursery for under 50 dollars (U.S.) To test different depths, just take samples in glass jars and use the meter to check the samples pH.

Remember that plants will tend to alter soil pH so that it becomes closer to what they desire for their roots.
Because of the effects of other amendments you may be planning on using, it is a good idea to gather the overall change affect slowly. You can always add more lime, it is a lot harder to get an overdose out of the soil.

Thanks for the advice Bryan.