I'm looking for contractors that can lime a lake (from a boat or barge) in east Texas. 50 acre lake, probably 50 tons or more lime. We have used Lochow in the past. I would like to have more than one bid. Please respond if you know someone. Also, anyone doing your own water testing, what kit are you using?

I've used Overtons for liming & been satisfied.

Thanks. Overton's no bid. Maybe they don't do application by boat.

Sorry to see that, Ross. Perhaps they have a max size limit they can handle.

Could be I guess. I know Lochow will do it but I would love to have a competing bud to compare.

Ross, the only other possibility I know about is American Sportsfish. They are active in east Texas, but whether they do liming, particularly on such a scale, I'm not sure.

Ross have you checked with local feed stores? They can carry 6 tons at a time and back up to water and sling it into water

You can't get where you need it around this lake. About the only place you could get a truck is on the dam. We need it up both arms.

I'm in the same boat Ross, no pun intended, I can only get to the dam and maybe 1 or 2 other spots on my lake, Ive had a lime truck back up to the dam and sling it as far as he could, exactly like Ewest's pic shows, I haven't taken water samples lately but I'm sure I could use some lime, I have several ditches, valleys, running into the back end of the pond, I have thought about taking a loader and dumping lime in those ditches, make the incoming water run across it, maybe eroding it into the pond, a little at a time, what gives me the idea that it would work is anytime you have a hard rain, the water running down or off of a limestone graveled rd the water will be almost white running off. that running into my pond should help my ph. no? or am I crazy?,, dont answer that. Ive been accused of worse.

Can you get to the arms with a tractor?

Would it be possible to dump lime in the feeder creeks leading into the arms?

Yes, I have built a rough trail to drive to two of the arms reasonably easy with a machine, be a pretty long trip to bucket it in there with a machine, from the closest point I can get a dump truck to. but then that's no hill for a climber. The third arm will need a little more persuasion to get to but Ive got the equipment to do it, with a couple track-loaders, track-hoe, skid-loaders and tractor I can get it there no problem.
At least thats what Im going to try, see if it works, want to get the lime to a drop off point that I can get to with a truck while its dry enough to get off the road, then work it in this fall and winter when I get a little time. let the spring rains and snow thaws wash it down into the pond.

Looks like I can get a bid from American Sportfish in addition to Lochow. That at least gives me a sanity check. I have thought about dumping lime in the feeders, but even that is difficult on this lake and I'm not sure how effective it will be. It certainly can't hurt.

I found the old records from when we had a Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist living on the lake. He kept it well above ph 7. The last 5 years we haven't limed and it is now down to 6. We can't get a decent bloom and all attempts to establish native vegetation have been failures so far. Our shad didn't seem to have much of a spawn this year. Bluegill are still strong. We have been continuing to stock Florida fingerlings and shad, but we aren't getting much organic reproduction. I firmly believe that in an older lake the primary base of the food chain must be vegetation. You just can't keep enough brush in a lake this size to provide all the necessary cover, and it doesn't replace the micro end of the food chain.

Yes, dumping in the lake arms will help but is much less effective. You can use a jon boat with 2x4 and plywood to transport to the open water and dump. Also, can hire or DYS with a pontoon boat.

Thats quite the setup you got pictured there Ewest, that should do the trick, probably way more effective then just dumping it in the tributaries, although with 15 A it would take a good bit to cover mine. Ill bet its not doing the water pump on that motor any favors tho.

I would be curious how many tons of lime ASF and Lochow recommend. Especially if the Winona soil is the same as Tyler's.

Well, just got the bid in hand from Lochow. They said 125 tons in our 45-50 acre lake with a ph of 6. The said the lime was $101 a ton. Their labor is $400 an hour for 25 hours. All in $22,625 and we furnish the front end loader and driver. Needless to say I'm now looking for a decent used motor to repower our large work barge. I can find labor a whole lot cheaper than that. I don't know yet if they are marking up the lime itself.

Yowsers, lime here is about 8 - 9 bucks a ton at the quarry, but he may be hauling it a little ways. Im in the wrong biness again.

Price of diesel has skyrocketed last couple of years. I bet that's the main cost behind the $101 ton price.

I talked to our local ag supply company. Liquid lime is what they recommend. 275 gallon tote (calcium carbonate) is equivalent to 110 tons. Application is with a sprayer. Texas A&M says it is recommended the same as crushed limestone. $4165 for 110 tons is 1/3 the cost.
https://aquaplant.tamu.edu/files/2022/02/liming-your-pond-to-improve-the-fishery.pdf

Not so sure about this. See prior threads on liquid lime.

Ross, is this the product known as Calcis?

I don't understand how liquid lime (that basically has water to liquefy it can be just as effective as dry powdered lime that you liquefy with pond/lake water on the barge.....

Here last January on-road diesel was $3.89/gal. Now it's in the low to mid $5/gal range.

That sounds like a heck of a deal if it actually works that way, heck you will have enough money left over to buy an old pontoon boat to spread it with and still save money over the ag lime price.

Near as I can determine, liquid calcium carbonate hits quickly because it is effectively pre-dissolved. It can take crushed limestone up to 6 months to dissolve. The liquid will not have as long lasting an effect because there isn't as much real material present. You get a fast but short lived adjustment. It's ok for one season row crops but not what I want in a lake.

For east Texas lake managers, we can get crushed limestone out of Idabel and Hugo, OK. The price is $6 a ton. Hauling it to Tyler is $36-40 a ton. So less than 1/2 my quote. It's not the "super fine" that comes out of Georgetown, TX, but 3/16" and smaller. Loads are 25 tons per truck. I didn't ask about smaller loads.

A little additional information. At least one individual that has done commercial liming reports that the lime from southeastern Oklahoma is about 30% as efficient as the superfine stuff from Georgetown, TX. Factor that in when you do the cost trade off. 3 times as much to haul and 3 times as muich to spread for the same kick.

I dont know anything about the lime in that area but I do know there is a huge difference in quality of lime, and as we all know, the finer the better when you are talking about limestone, because too big a chunk of it is just a small rock, not much benefit to your ph balance at that point, might make good bluegill beds tho.

Isn't the finest lime the pelletized lime (vs the powdered lime)

Right, I was of the opinion that is a fine powder formed into a pellet but I may be wrong.

That's what I was told too. For plants, I was told to use the pelletized lime if there were plants in the ground, the powder if it was bare dirt.

Pellitized has a binder mixed into and then formed into pellets. Superfine is ground to powder.

One of the issues when spreading lime from a stationery position, like a pond bank, is that the lime powder can form a dome in the spreader bed if high humidity or rain causes the powdered lime to cake. It doesn't matter in pastures because the trucks are constantly bouncing around. I've spread lime and gypsum, and they both seem to have a good bit of powder along with the pellets.

Another problem I had with the stationary spreading of the lime into the edge of the pond is, my guy had bought a new to him truck, and he had a devil of a time to get the damn thing to just sit and run the spreader, the computer was wanting to do a tons per acre thing and without the wheels turning it was going into a panic, he finally figured out how to over ride the damn thing.

Still chasing lime for our lake. We now have a bid of $70/ton hauled from Georgetown and dumped. Still have to spread it. I have a guy willing to do that for about $160/hour his boat. We should get done for under $10,000 for 75 tons.

I've had good results using pelletized lime in my pond - only needed to add about 1.5 tons to get my previously clear 1 3/4 acre pond to have consistent blooms.