Moisture Balance 0% = water after 2 weeks?

Yesterday my front lawn on flex daily was finally going to water July 5th after a few weeks of off and on rain. I woke up this morning to see that it now says “Will Water after July 17”. Checking the graphs I see that it’s moisture balance is forecasted to be 0% today and maybe a slight chance of rain every day for the next week. What if it doesn’t rain? When will it adjust and water the lawn?

Thanks :slight_smile:

Today is July 4th

It may help to remember that the 0% that you hit today is really just 50% MAD (if you are using the default), so it really can go to 60% or 70% without a problem. July 5 you have a forecast of .84 cm of precipitation but your ET is only going to use up .13 cm. if you don’t get any rain at all, you will water on July 6. If you get rain and you get more than .13cm, you will also be fine.

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Lynn provides solid info. Something to keep in mind, this software is attempting to explain what it is going to do, it gets confusing. Because your mad is to 50%, eventually the et plus percip will not be enough to reach your mad and the irrigation will run to fill 100%. If you are not on restriction, it will run a full cycle. Then the neighbors come out and ask why your irrigation is running so soon after rain and your have to breake down mad plus pr plus forecast plus awc, then their eyes glaze over, you get bored and your turf stays green. I’ve seen it 1000 times…

It’s confusing at first but one of many reasons your mad needs to be 50%.

Something,worth reading, your turf and your plants have a pwp (permanent wilt point). A mad of 50% keeps predicted water content above this point. That is really what mad represents in the model.m the point of irreversible plant death, stick with 50%.

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I had it at 40% because I’m new to this and wanted watering sooner. I’ve changed it to 50% to see how it goes.

I love the Iro because it hasn’t watered in weeks with all the off and on rain we’ve had here that barely activated my rain sensor. My old controller would have run every 3-4 days or have me run to the basement to delay it manually. Now I can sit back and relax.

Thanks for the further explanation on mad.

I love this Iro. My moisture balance went to 0% but it held off on watering because there was rain in the forecast. Sure enough, over the weekend it rained steadily and now I’m up to 105% and I didn’t use my sprinklers.

Water utilities should mandate that a product like this be a requirement for irrigation systems.

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Yea, this happens on occasion for me as well, then I go out in the garage and wiser sweet nothings to it, pillow talk as Bruce Campbell would say

@plainsane Why am I left with a mental image of you whispering cheek to face plate that I can’t seem to shake?

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