Do pine needles make the soil more acidic?
January Man
Posts: 212
Hi all
I am going through options for keeping the slugs off my young brassicas. I have some pine needles spare and was thinking of mulching with those. I've already done my strawberries with them, partly because I had read that they can increase the acidity of the soil, which is beneficial to strawberries.
However, from what I've read brassicas are not so keen on acidic soil, so would it be a bad idea to use the pine needles?
I did read somewhere that someone tested one of their beds where pine needles had been used, and another where they hadn't, and the pH was the same in both. But then I also know how unreliable these testers can be sometimes.
So I wondered what people here have experienced and/or what they think about the subject?
Many thanks
Max
Posts
years of pine needle application might cause a difference in pH, but one won't make any difference at all
Agree with treehugger80, its a perfect mulch for many plants, in fact to go a bit further...
While pine needles are indeed acidic, and pine trees prefer acidic soil, they do not have sufficient surface area to break down fast enough to leach the acidity into the surrounding soil. In fact last study I saw found that topsoil directly under the tree came out with a PH 7 so was actually neutral.
So using them on blueberries, lemons etc is theoretically a waste of time. Better off with just getting the ericacious soils for those plants I think.
...unless your soil is acidic and you are growing acid loving plants in which case finding a mulch that doesn't have any lime content can be a problem - manure and most composts are not suitable. Pine needles and bark chippings make a good mulch for ericaceous plants not because they increase the acidity but because they don't reduce it.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Aha yes true, didnt look at it that way. Thankyou for correcting my oversight, I felt a little overzealous putting 'waste of time' especially as at the beginning i'd said it was a perfect mulch for many plants but at that point i'd already clicked post and havent figured out how to 'edit'.
Edited to add - I just found the edit button haha
Last edited: 06 June 2017 20:00:30
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”