I have 4 zones, and I want to set up a watering schedule that works and doesn’t kill anything off. I have already set up a smart schedule to water, but my concern is that the watering schedule that has been configured automatically based on the settings provided, is using way too much water. I have small sections of grass and shrubs, and it wants to water the grass for 26 min and my shrubs for 46… I do not have any sensors either.
That seems awfully long to me. I live in the northwest and have sandy loam soil. I have had two different gardeners tell me that the shrubs should be watered daily for about 8 minutes and the grass for about 12 minutes. I was wondering what your thoughts were on this and if I should use a daily schedule instead of the smart flex schedule im using.
Oh another thing, I am running these rainbird 32SA heads and they put out a ton of water! which is another concern of mine
Yes, it’s recommended that you have a different schedule for each type of vegetation. I have 2 flex daily schedules, 1 for my shrubs and 1 for my grass
You’re welcome. If you want to get more indepth with your settings, post a screenshot of your zone setup and we can go from there to see about those run times.
Are these “professionals” or just people who garden/landscape their own? Blanket statements like that are usually something you need to be careful. It’s how misinformation spreads like a weed.
this is weird, I just set up a flex schedule for the shrubs and it appears there will be no watering days in july for them? oh wait i take that back… july 9th lol… i feel like it should water sooner tho?
@migmon
To see the details that are key to your predictions go into the zone, go down to ‘Moisture Levels’ and you should see a graph. Under that graph, select ‘More Detail’. Scroll back and forth between weeks to see the predictions. Feel free to share here.
ah I got it, so because when I installed this thing I was testing the zones and ran it for a minute on the 18th and so it was guessing that the moisture level was still sufficient till the 9th of july even tho it only ran for less than 5 min on the 18th. I assume it considered that a full watering which is why it said I used something like 700 gallons when the whole system was run for less than 15 min while adjusting all sprinklers
@migmon I’m surprised that 5 minutes of watering would push out the prediction that far. The Iro will not think of it as a full watering. It should record only the 5 minutes. If you share the moisture level plot with the table we can dig in further, or are you expecting 3 weeks between your shrub watering ?
I zeroed out the moisture table so that it would water tomorrow. It seems like the moisture table is simply an estimate because it is not based on any sensor. So on the first day it was watered which I think was the 18th it showed the moisture level as being full and it was only at about half today when I zeroed it out…
@migmon The moisture tables are certainly estimated, but based on many of your zone settings and weather input. As long as you know that and are comfortable with the predictions then you’re good. If you’re not then be very careful and keep an eye on your schedule as it will change from day to day, and most importantly watch your vegetation. Three weeks sounds like a long gap to me and it won’t change much just by resetting the moisture level. Of course for some climates and vegetation types three weeks might make sense.
