Soil Moisture 0% and dry lawn

I have been using the Gen 3 for 1 month now. Started with spray heads that put out 3.2 in/hr. Found this out when the water conservancy came out and tested everything. They recommended the Hunter MP rotor heads so I changed all of the heads out to the 800 series. In the past 2 weeks my lawn is dry with small brown areas showing up especially on the edges. The soil moisture has been 0% for that entire time. Soil is sand, roots are 6 inches, output is 0.8 to 0.97 in/hr now. I have input all of this into the advanced section of each zone. What am I doing wrong? (sorry for the newbie question, - really like this controller but I am almost ready to go back to the “stupid” controller to get my lawn more water) Thanks in advance.

First off, I think the .8 - .97 is a bit high on the PR for the MP800 nozzles. Did the “water conservancy” give you those figures? They can put out as little as .70"/hr, so I might look at lowering it just a bit.

Also, what do you have your root depth, soil type, etc. set at? Can you post a screenshot of both the basic and advanced settings for one of the zones?

Yes, the conservancy gave me the numbers from cup testing, soil testing, etc. The original Hunters are rated at .4, but the 800’s are 0.8 on their website. I have dialed them down as much as I can to allow overlap (oh, and I have 55 psi in my yard which Hunter said was ok). Here are the screenshots, thanks for the help!

By choosing sand as your soil the system always thinks you are depleted since sand can’t really hold water that well. I’d change to the default loam soil type, and also only apply flex daily to one or two zones until you are comfortable with the settings, then if you are add additional zones into your flex daily schedule. Please let us know if you have additional questions.

Yea, I’d be really surprise if you really have “sand” soil. I think that is a major contributor to your issues. Check out the Web Soil Survey Site to figure out what type of soil you are really working with.

Thanks. I looked it up and it says 93.7% eroded land-shale complex, warm; 6.3% junction fine sandy loam.
What is eroded land-shale complex?

Ok, so I did the jar test today and I have 88% sand, and 12% silt. I can’t see a clay layer at all. I am switching to loamy sand to see what that does.

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