Hope this isn't a foolish question...
We have an area on our allotment that we want to turn into a bed for growing blueberries. At present we have bags of fresh shredded conifer clippings and I wondered if these could be utilised in any way to bring down the ph of the soil.The blueberries are currently in pots and I intended to put them on the plot this autumn.
Thanks in advance, June
Can conifer clippings be used to make soil acidic?
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madasafish
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Yes
US blueberry farms use them (and/or rotted sawdust -often decades old from closed down logging camps.)
US blueberry farms use them (and/or rotted sawdust -often decades old from closed down logging camps.)
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peter
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If you use the Forum search facility you will find a long thread about this. Pigletwillie contributed quite a bit as he grows blueberries. 
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Hi June,
There are only a few conifers that are truly acidic.
To clarify this I will try to explain.
Some conifers need acidic conditions to grow and would not prosper if the soil is the slightest bit alkaline but most grow quite happily in conditions at about 6.5 to 7 PH. 7PH being neutral.
We have had great discussions on the forum in the past about the Leylandii and how the compost is acidic. I felled almost 100 Leylandii two years ago and all the foliage was stacked for a year until the needle could be easily thrashed from the branches and they have now been composted for a year.
I could use this year old compost as a soil conditioner but I shall keep it until it has gone to leaf mould. Luckily I have no lack of manure and compost so I can afford to wait. At the time of the main discussion I took the PH reading and it was as near 7PH as makes no difference this was a mixture of Leylandii and Lawson conifers and had been composting about 4 years. These trees had been growing in neutral soil so I suspect that had these trees been grown in acidic soil there may have been a difference in PH.
My conclusion is that whereas the conifer compost will not do any harm I very much doubt if it will be of great assistance to plants that require an acidic condition.
What may prevail in the USA is of little value because they have vast areas where the acidic conifers grow on Acidic soil but in UK this may not prevail.
JB.
There are only a few conifers that are truly acidic.
To clarify this I will try to explain.
Some conifers need acidic conditions to grow and would not prosper if the soil is the slightest bit alkaline but most grow quite happily in conditions at about 6.5 to 7 PH. 7PH being neutral.
We have had great discussions on the forum in the past about the Leylandii and how the compost is acidic. I felled almost 100 Leylandii two years ago and all the foliage was stacked for a year until the needle could be easily thrashed from the branches and they have now been composted for a year.
I could use this year old compost as a soil conditioner but I shall keep it until it has gone to leaf mould. Luckily I have no lack of manure and compost so I can afford to wait. At the time of the main discussion I took the PH reading and it was as near 7PH as makes no difference this was a mixture of Leylandii and Lawson conifers and had been composting about 4 years. These trees had been growing in neutral soil so I suspect that had these trees been grown in acidic soil there may have been a difference in PH.
My conclusion is that whereas the conifer compost will not do any harm I very much doubt if it will be of great assistance to plants that require an acidic condition.
What may prevail in the USA is of little value because they have vast areas where the acidic conifers grow on Acidic soil but in UK this may not prevail.
JB.
Hi everyone
Many thanks for the advice. I should have done a search as suggested
I've looked at the other threads on this and they more or less confirm what I wanted to do.
JB-thanks for the suggestion of letting the clippings rot for a while, I'll try this.
June
Many thanks for the advice. I should have done a search as suggested
I've looked at the other threads on this and they more or less confirm what I wanted to do.
JB-thanks for the suggestion of letting the clippings rot for a while, I'll try this.
June