Q: What does lime do to the soil? A: It raises the pH level to provide the best conditions for growing pasture.

Lime improves soil quality by lifting the soil pH level. This encourages earthworm and microbe activity, which improves overall soil structure and root development, essential for vigorous, healthy pasture.
Getting the soil pH at the ideal level (between 5.8 - 6.2) has a great effect on nutrient availability...
Just look at Fig. 1 At a pH of 5.8 - 6.2 the soil has access to the widest range of nutrients, so maintaining the right pH leaves little chance of nutrient deficiency.

Fig. 1 Effect of change in pH on the availability of plant nutrients.

This balanced environment also ensures fertiliser applications are fully utilised, and because of this, on farm results have shown fertiliser application can be reduced by approximately 25-40%!
Using lime to lift the pH makes poisonous elements less available:
Aluminium If soil pH is below 5.5 the aluminium solubility locks up phosphate so it can’t be used effectively by the soil.

Manganese More manganese is evident when soil has a low pH. This will make the pasture less palatable for the stock. Excessive manganese can also be poisonous to young stock.

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