I live in Arizona. Everything is dying on the Flexible Schedule

@Modawg2k I just remembered that I had to re-create my zones when Rachio updated the software to include the ability to modify crop coefficients. Did you take your snapshot when creating a new zone, or modifying an existing one ?

That screenshot was today when I tried to create a new zone from one of my unused slots.

LOL, maybe someone can help clear the airā€¦ not sure whoā€™s role that is, so Iā€™ll just tag @franz

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-Kā€¦

Thanks everybody for the fantastic support!

I have updated my soil everywhere (grass and plants) to Sandy Loam.

Based on my old settings:
My grass has been getting watered every other day for 24 minutes (total).
My Cacti are getting watered once a week for 63 minutes.
My shrubs are getting watered once every 2 weeks for 191 minutes.

For my grass, I have mostly used Rainbird pop-up spray heads. I have a lot of these models around the yard: http://store.rainbird.com/sprinklers/10van-10-ft-van-series-variable-arc-spray-nozzle.html

I havenā€™t run a cup test yet for my grass. How long do I let it run for? 15 minutes and multiply by 4 to determine the inches per hour? Or, just run a regular schedule with the current settings, and multiply by 60/runtime?

I have also adjusted my grass root depth to 6" and my shrub root depth to 24" for now.based on suggestions above.

Let me know what I should be trying next ā€¦

Thanks,

AzJazz

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@AzJazz

For your shrubs, trees and cacti, there is a great website that guides us toward the proper irrigation for our desert vegetation. What I did was consult that website, then come back to the Rachio to update my settings accordingly. The drip emitter zones need the biggest adjustment. Hereā€™s a guide that shows how I went through the process step by step. Note that youā€™ll also get root depth settings that you should also adjust. As one example, it looks like your root depth for cacti should be 8-12 inches, but youā€™ll also need to create custom nozzles and use lower precipitation rates per the step by step guide.

Curious as to what part of town you live in? Iā€™m in Ahwatukee.

Yeah that shrub watering time is way too short considering you only have 1 gallon/hour emitters. At most they are getting 6 gallons every 2 weeks if you can double count emitters for shrubs that are close together. I would suggest switching the emitter out to a higher rate emitter or maybe even add some more emitters so you donā€™t have to water all day. Take a look at the water it wisely website. It should help you choose which emitters to put in. You should also be able to use their guidelines to come up with the appropriate watering time needed and you can then fine tune your precipitation rate to get the same time from the controller.

I donā€™t understand why your cacti are being watered more often than your shrubs. Looks like maybe your shrub crop coefficient needs to be increased and your cacti coefficient needs to be decreased.

For the catch cup test, they recommend running it at least 10 minutes and scaling it up to an hour. That should be fine.

EDITED to add link to landscape watering guide

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Beat me to it.

Just barely!

@Modawg2k and @azdavidr are great resources to get your turf settings dialed in. They are the go-to guys for advice on our desert lawns.

Iā€™m wondering about the cacti being watered once a week. Too much water can cause the roots to rot. During the summer, watering every 14 - 30 days is usually sufficient.

Texas sage is drought tolerant, and lantana has low water requirements, but roses are heavy water users.

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@Modawg2k @azdavidr

Yes, strange things afoot indeed (nice Bill and Tedā€™s reference).

@Modawg2k Very strange, looked like that had affected .004% of crop types, must have been a data migration issue way way back.

Problem corrected, now set at a default of 65%.

:cheers:

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I was curious about why the cactus schedule would be that frequent, given that get screenshot shows a crop coefficient of 0.3, and available water of 0.2. The change to Sandy Loam and AW of 0.12 will only make it worse. That was why I brought up the cactus root depth. The ā€œWater Use It Wiselyā€ screenshot I took a while ago suggests 8"-12", which should decrease the frequency and water more deeply, but Iā€™m not sure the frequency will drop enough. @sunny, does that 8"-12" recommendation seem decent? What about the 0.3 crop coefficient?

Generally speaking, desert cacti have a shallow root depth as an adaption to support life in an arid environment. The shallow roots allow them to collect the water efficiently. As you know, we often have our famous ā€œArizona 12-inch rainsā€ā€“that is 12 inches between the drops.

Many of the desert cacti roots are only 2 - 4 inches deep allowing for collection of water from brief and infrequent rain. Even the saguaro tap root grows only a few feet deep and the rest of the root system spreads out, but is only a few inches deep. The ā€œwaxyā€ or ā€œleatheryā€ skin of many cacti helps prevent evaporation. Since they store water in the interior of the ā€œstemsā€, they need infrequent watering and a deep watering will mostly waste water.

As far as I am aware as late as 2003, crop coefficients had not been developed for Arizonaā€“we relied on California data. Studies have now been done, but the data relates to corn, barley and a few income-producing vegetable crops.

A crop coefficient for xeriscape is probably an informed ā€œguesstimateā€. Hereā€™s a link to a publication from New Mexico State University briefly explaining climate based coefficients for xeriscapes. http://bit.ly/2afG0HN

You get to do the math. :wink:

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Wow, what a great answer @sunny, thanks! Given that the root depth isnā€™t set too shallow then I wonder why there is that frequent of a watering schedule. My trees and shrubs are on 7-10 day cycles, and their crop coefficients are quite a bit higher than 0.3.

@AzJazz, earlier you posted the schedule with your old settings. What do you see for your cacti watering schedule and duration after changing your settings ? The best way to show whatā€™s going on is to go into your zone settings, hit the blue button at the bottom that Moisture Level, then click on 'More detail to expand. It will look something like this.

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Iā€™m jealous of that 0.53" you got on Friday. For the entire month of July, Iā€™ve had under 0.1" recorded.

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I was thinking the same thing! My rain guage registered .25 on Friday. Arizona rains!

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@Modawg2k and @sunny There are some nice homes for sale down here. Your lower water bill will compensate for your closing and moving costs in no time. :wink:

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LOL! You sell real estate in your spare time?:wink:

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Very interesting info for here in AZ. Are any if you available for hire (or beer) to review my settings with me? Iā€™ve been using Rachio for nearly a year. My Bermuda looks like hay and my last water bill was $150. Iā€™ve given up on flex/ā€œsmartā€ schedules and gone back to manual. Watering four times per day, every day, 20 minutes per run time I dumped 65,000 gallons this past month and am starting to look green again. There are still areas that are completely dead, so I dumped 5 lbs of seed and another 10+ lbs of fertilizer. None of it grew. Iā€™m seriously done with grass and this ā€œsmartā€ controller (today itā€™s rainingā€¦and my sprinklers still ran!).

If anyone is for hire or knows of a strong grass expert, preferably with ET or Rachio experience, Iā€™d be very open to hiring them.

Thanks!

Hi @JBHorne, I can understand the frustration. I was ready to burn down my yard before this year and I had yanked out a bunch of plants in frustration. Sounds like right now you are throwing everything at it but the kitchen sink. I saw you posted in the general forum, but I suggest you should copy over that post to the appropriate sub-forum and youā€™ll be sure to get a lot of answers. I see blue raindrops so are you using flex monthly? Also, I by no means have a flexible schedule due to work and family, but just out of curiosity, where do you live?