I have been liming and fertilizing (with soil tests) for 3-4 years. Mostly doing 1-6 acre food plots. Whether doing 1 or 6 or more acres I rent the buggy at the co-op. It's so much cheaper and more efficient. At $45/ton bulk I'll never pick up a bag. Same goes for the K and P and the N. Soon I'll be liming about 25-30 acres (40-60 tons) and I will let the co-op do that for me ........ I think they need at least 15 tons to use their truck.
TIP: You learn has you go and I have. Never go to pick up lime unless it hasn't rained in a week or more unless they keep it under cover or they have a fresh dry load. You never want to put out wet lime. Also, before you hook up to a cart/buggy to load with lime...... always climb up and look to see what's in it. If it has a ton of wet lime, let someone else clean it out and come back another day. You will have a war if you wind up with wet lime in the buggy. One day it started raining while I was liming (yes I was trying to beat the rain) and I ended up climbing back there in the buggy a half a dozen times or more with shovels and anything to try and help move the lime to get it to flow. Huge PITA. Rain and lime do not mix!!!
STORY: I am not an experienced farm/hay person. But, IMO ......... the people at my local co-ops are not at the top of the food chain (nicest way I could find to say it). I've been wanting to put about 8 tons of lime 6-8 acres adjacent to some of my food plots. My food plots are gorgeous where I've been liming and fertilizing. 30 feet away it looks like a train wreck. 7.0 pH vs 5.3 pH. So I call the co-op from my gravel driveway in my truck ....... "hello, do ya'll have a lime buggy available". "Yes". "Great, I'll see you in about 15 min". Co-op - "Fine, we'll see you in a few". So I drive to co-op, go to switch the receiver attachment and the receiver lock won't function. Go in the co-op and buy WD-40. Back to truck and treat lock with WD-40, finally switch over to the attachment to take the pin on the lime buggy. Go back to counter in co-op to order buggy/lime.......... they have trouble ringing up bulk lime. Same guy I talked to on the phone comes to register and checks, then says, "I'll go out back and see what the problem is". So I shop around the store and after about 10 minutes he comes in and informs me that they 'might' be able to scrap up about 1 ton but that's all the lime they have. (YES....... I called before I came but I only asked if they had a lime buggy, I never asked if they had lime.) Anyway, I was about 7 miles east of my place and trying to beat the possibility of rain. I called another co-op about 6-7 miles south of my place. I asked if they had lime and lime buggy available............ she said "you can't put out lime". Confused I asked "why not". She said "its pouring down rain here, the lime is wet and won't flow". I drove there anyway since I knew she had not been outside. I found almost no sign of rain the entire way there, but, when I arrived at the co-op every pot hole was full of water. The lime was wet as far as I could stick my finger in it. Needless to say......... I still need to lime.