Do Pine Needles Make Soil More Acidic? Truth or Gardening Myth?

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I haven't watched the video yet, but I have two neighbors who have removed pine bushes and where they were, nothing else would grow. One neighbor had soil removed and new soil brought in. Now they have grass growing in that former place. I wonder if blueberries would be okay in spots like that?

Edit: LOL, watch before commenting! He is talking about growing blueberries. Oops!
 
@Weedygarden rewatch it....pine needles do not transfer acidic to soils. the soil already has troubles . this explains a reason i was talking a pretty famous phd'er on the world at a ag education seminar and they mentioned their sister growing watermelons under pine trees and they were so fantastic and according to most that shouldnt be so..including the phd'er as well. so now we know...pine needles dont transfer acicid into soils.

the soil is already messed up either from leeching or whatever..no organic matter..its reason we see pine grow in such rough soils and shallow dry rocky ridges etc. and more like the boggy northern boreal forests.
 
Our soil is extremely alkaline, 9-10 and very rocky, and the pine trees do great. The only thing I can see the pine needles helping with is water retention and weed suppression. If the needles helped with oh the soil under the trees would be lower under the trees than the open areas and it isn't.
 
Evergreen Conifer trees(cone bear) are acidic , but do not breakdown as acidic, 07.0 is considered Neutral on pH scale, but would raise my 5.0 or 5.5 pH
soil up 1.5-2.0 alkaline. Compost/humus is a wonderful thing & mother earth does a wonderful job, if we will work with her. I have found red wigglers in manure & pine straw, the acidic has to below from the rotten straw, worms will not reproduce or not reproduce well in high acidic bedding.
There is/was a thread on a garden site a few years back on making soil acidic for blueberry plants & a thread on pine straw lowering pH .
So this has been beat to death on many garden sites. I found sulfur to lower pH & lime to raise pH, Gypsum has calcium, but has less effect on the pH then lime. I always use the tablet or pill form, so I will not have to breath the harmful dust & no waste from wind erosion.
 
A common misconception is that any material with calcium in it (eg, gypsum) will raise soil pH. This is not true. It is not the calcium or magnesium in soil amendments that are responsible for raising pH, it is the oxides, hydroxides, carbonates, or bicarbonates in these products that raise pH. You have to remember that pH is a measure of dissolved hydrogen in the soil. The higher the hydrogen concentration the lower the pH. It is the oxygen in the oxides, hydroxides, carbonates, or bicarbonates in soil amendments that combine with the hydrogen in soil (to make H20). Even though the gypsum compound has oxygen in it, in the form of sulfate, that oxygen is not as free to combine with the hydrogen in soils, and thus, does not increase pH.
 
joel said:
Evergreen Conifer trees(cone bear) are acidic , but do not breakdown as acidic, 07.0 is considered Neutral on pH scale, but would raise my 5.0 or 5.5 pH
soil up 1.5-2.0 alkaline. Compost/humus is a wonderful thing & mother earth does a wonderful job, if we will work with her. I have found red wigglers in manure & pine straw, the acidic has to below from the rotten straw, worms will not reproduce or not reproduce well in high acidic bedding.
There is/was a thread on a garden site a few years back on making soil acidic for blueberry plants & a thread on pine straw lowering pH .
So this has been beat to death on many garden sites. I found sulfur to lower pH & lime to raise pH, Gypsum has calcium, but has less effect on the pH then lime. I always use the tablet or pill form, so I will not have to breath the harmful dust & no waste from wind erosion.
Click to expand...

I also heard worms don't like pine needles,they cut them,not sure if its true but we stopped using pine straw years ago.
 
Meerkat said:
I also heard worms don't like pine needles,they cut them,not sure if its true but we stopped using pine straw years ago.
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Worms are considered an invasive specie in the soils of most of Minnesota. When the last ice age occurred, all of the worms under the mile thick glaciers were killed. Worms do not move very far or very fast, so the worms we do have in Minnesota where either brought in by pioneers, fishermen, or birds. Worms are destroying the soil's organic layer in Minnesota forests.
 
Cabin Fever said:
Worms are considered an invasive specie in the soils of most of Minnesota. When the last ice age occurred, all of the worms under the mile thick glaciers were killed. Worms do not move very far or very fast, so the worms we do have in Minnesota where either brought in by pioneers, fishermen, or birds. Worms are destroying the soil's organic layer in Minnesota forests.
Click to expand...
I find that surprising.

My father had worm farm next to our house in Duluth to be used as bait.

Worm castings are super food for most gardening. They also aerate the soil.

It has been more than fifty years since we moved there but I want to say there a lot or pinewood forests.

I just don't get it why worms are damaging the organic layer.

Ben
 
Worm castings have raised the top soil at our local high school football field many inches during the time I worked for the school district. Every time it rained or when we watered the field, I never had a problem getting night crawlers for fishing. Worms break down dying plant materials and add to the organic layer. The grass around here doesn't grow under pine trees and on top of that, pine needles on the ground help forest fires to progress, I've seen that happen many times.
 
Cabin Fever said:
Worms are considered an invasive specie in the soils of most of Minnesota. When the last ice age occurred, all of the worms under the mile thick glaciers were killed. Worms do not move very far or very fast, so the worms we do have in Minnesota where either brought in by pioneers, fishermen, or birds. Worms are destroying the soil's organic layer in Minnesota forests.
Click to expand...
They are invasive for two reasons:
1)They harm to young seedling, by composting the falling leaf litter & leaving no where for the seedling to grow.
2) red wigglers & nightcrawlers are European worms, believed to have come over in fruit tree root balls.
The European sails & craps, were bought over as food & spread like wild fire.
Earth worms are great until they hurt the environment, we do have native earth worms, in a few places, but not many.
Blue worms & tiger worms will not live outside in freezing temperatures.
https://www.brandywine.org/conservancy/blog/worms-are-eating-our-woods
 
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Sorry we were talking about pine or Pinaceae family having acidic needles & will the needles make soil more acidic.
I say no, needle compost is 7.0 pH as someone stated above.
 
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Neb said:
I find that surprising.

My father had worm farm next to our house in Duluth to be used as bait.

Worm castings are super food for most gardening. They also aerate the soil.

It has been more than fifty years since we moved there but I want to say there a lot or pinewood forests.

I just don't get it why worms are damaging the organic layer.

Ben
Click to expand...
This should answer your question ==> Earthworms

1619535887696.png
 
I am with Neb, I was shocked to find out common earth worms, honeybees, carp, snails & many common garden vegetables are from another part of the world. I learned this many years ago, now I am shocked by very little.
 
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