How many schedules are reasonable?

We live on 1 acre in southern California. I have 30 zones (3 Rachio 3 controllers) Each zone MAY contain trees, shrubs, grass, annuals, perennials and ground cover. I’m attempting to set up flex daily schedules that match ( as closely as possible) the type of plant type that is predominately in that zone. How many schedules are reasonable and how do I adjust start times so they don’t conflict with one another?

@wpetedodd - Rachio can handle different plant types on the same Flex schedule. Having multiple plant types in a single zone is sub-optimal as the zone will need to be configured for the most water needy item. Rachio will only water the zones that need watering. I might configure one controller for M, W, F watering and the second controller for S, T, TH watering with both of them starting at the same time, say 6 AM (as an example). For the third controller, I’d have it start at in the evening, say 6 PM. That way the schedules shouldn’t collide.

If you have drip zones, you could put them in their own schedules and set up the controllers as @DLane suggested. But you could let the drips run during the daytime – that would also help spread things out.

I agree totally with you setting up schedules to match plant types. While it’s not necessary, it makes things a lot easier to figure out the timing that you want.

Thanks. Good suggestions.

With 3 controllers (1-16 zone and 2-8 zones) I am finding that even though I have scheduled different days and times, I notice that this morning a zone is watering on Wednesday that is scheduled for T-Th-Sat. Could this occur due to Allowed Depletion dropping below 50%? How can 2 zones watering at the same time when they are scheduled for different days?

@wpetedodd - are any end before (sunrise or specific time) settings on the schedules?

If so, that will cause the system to back the time up for a potential maximum run time that can cause it to start the day prior.

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Thanks. That make sense but I don’t understand that if the total water time is 7 hours (30 Avocado Trees) it looks like the 7 hours is only water time and does not include cycle & soaking time because the schedule started yesterday (Tues) at 10:30pm and is schedules to run for 738 minutes (12.3 hours) Am I correct?

@wpetedodd - I’ve seen lots of other posts with end before time settings causing unexpected start times. From what I understand the schedule gets built backwards and assumes the worst case for if it needs to water everything.

The notices in my history include the soak times.

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Thanks for answering so quickly!