Too Dry Across the Board

I found an inexpensive one that I have used. :grin: I actually used it to settle a “discussion” about over-watering.

I found it in a garden catalog and think I paid around $15 for it.

Ended the “discussion” and solved the problem.

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The one I find most useful is similar to this:
image

One of the local Master Gardeners makes them. It doesn’t have notches on it, but that’s not really necessary. Absent those, a long, wide-bladed screw driver works just as well.

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Great article. Thanks for passing that on, Franz.

Another great article that really helped me to better understand Allowed Depletion. Thanks @Linn .

And thanks to everybody who offered up their sage advice. Much appreciated. I’ll report back in a few weeks.

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Seasonal adjust is what the flex schedule is supposed to do.

I don’t believe that applies to Flex Daily, but to fixed schedules. I’m not sure about Flex Monthly.

I think you are in zone 10 according to the temperatures you listed.

I’ll research further. Thank you.

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@azdavidr and @tcremer

Flex Monthly has a monthly adjustment to account for historical seasonal changes.

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Do the “historical seasonal changes” accurately reflect the effect of the increase in global warming rate of the past 15 years?

@tcremer -

When Seasonal Shift is enabled, at the beginning of every month, your schedule will adjust its watering durations by referencing 30 years of historical weather Almanac data in your area. In general, watering times will be longer in the warmer months and shorter in cooler months.

See -> https://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010540868-Seasonal-Shift-FAQ

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Thirty years is my concern. The mean measurement of the past 30 years doesn’t accurately reflect the huge increase in temperature of the past 15 years and the decrease in precipitation.

Hey @tcremer,

That’s a great concern! I’ll make sure our product team sees this for further research or explanation. :slight_smile:
Good thinkin!

-Lo :rachio:

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@tcremer - the web page said referencing, not mean. So without illumination from Rachio they could be weighting recent data more heavily than older data.

Besides, Samuel Clemens said there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

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@tcremer Great point, I’ll see if there are any updated datasets. This will only impact flex monthly.

:cheers:

Continuing the discussion from Too Dry Across the Board:

@Raymondo17 is in zone 9 as he posted. With the latest updates the zone is likely 9b. USDA Hardiness Zones are based on average winter low temps.

Depending on his exact location he may be in either zone 14 or 9 of the Sunset Zone maps. AHS Heat Zone maps place his garden in zone 8.

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@tcremer Normals are updated every 10 years, so we need to wait 2 more years for the next data set.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcn/comparative-climatic-data

:cheers:

The Climate Normals are the 30-year average values computed from the data recorded during the period 1971–2000. Normals are updated decennially, for the most recent 30-year period. If an instrument’s exposure was changed, mathematical adjustments are made to make the data representative of the current location. The values are statistically determined and cannot be recreated solely from the original record.

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See this thread and post for a big gotcha relating to Allowed Depletion, hot days and restricted schedules. Allowed Depletion is a fixed limiter on how much will be irrigated, no matter how hot the days are and how infrequently you water.

Thanks Martino.

You know, I think I’m at the end of my rope with Flex scheduling. It seems to work ok for lawns, but for my flower and vegetable beds, not so much. Over the last few weeks I’ve tried adjusting the Advanced settings to try and up the amount of water being delivered to my vegetable garden. I even bumped up the Crop Coefficient to 150% after reading that that percentage was set specifically for tomatoes, and my garden is largely tomatoes. But the changes resulted in my drip line coming on once every day for 3 minutes. Clearly that’s not going to cut it.

So I want to go back to setting a specified watering time for my growing beds, but I can’t seem to find where to make that change for this zone. Can somebody clue me in how to switch from a Flex schedule to a user-specified watering schedule?

If you tap Schedule in the App, there should be a blue + button in the lower right corner. Tap that, select Fixed, then select the appropriate zones for that new schedule. When you’re satisfied, you can go back to the schedule screen, tap on the appropriate old Flex zone and disable it by toggling the enable slider to off. Or just delete it. I’d keep it around for a little while in case the muse hits you and you’d like to experiment with it and advanced zone settings again and watch the soil moisture chart adjust etc.

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Thank you, Kubisuro. Your step-by-step was exactly what I needed.

So, I went through the steps to set up a new Fixed schedule to run every three days, and the app replied something to the effect of, “After analyzing your settings for this zone, we’ve determined the run time should be 5 hours.” Five hours? Then why had the Flex schedule watered a total of 20 minutes over the last week?

Rachio’s Flex schedule may be a great tool for landscaping pros and amateur gardening geniuses who excel at math, but personally I think it’s way over the heads of regular Joe weekend gardeners like me. :confused: