I have my Rachio up and running…thanks for all your previous help.
I did my best to use the stabile settings from my old HydroPoint WeatherTrak controller. I have the old settings in Excel, but couldn’t attach them her.
My questions are:
1 - Why is the Rachio watering schedule so dramatically different when using the same settings I’ve used for years on the HydroPoint? I have no clue how to fine tune with the Advanced settings. (The Advanced settings terminology is greek to me.)
2 - When I manually water a zone, Rachio seems to push the watering schedule out by a day, I often do a manual watering if we have a sudden heat spell (So Cal) and don’t want to upset the calculated schedule. Should I just let Rachio take control or is there a way to add a manual schedule without affecting the Rachio schedule?
@lynnsegal - Welcome to the Rachio community. Which type of scheduling has been selected - it sounds like Flex Daily (the other options are Flex Monthly and Fixed)? I just want to make sure that who ever answers the questions provides the correct guidance. There are several community regulars that are really up on the Flex Daily settings. If you’d post pictures of the zone settings that are configured and what you have growing I’m sure you’ll get some guidance.
For 2, Rachio keeps up with the manual runs and adds that water to moisture level, increasing the moisture and thus moving out the next watering session.
From my fading memory of Weathertrak, it was not smart enough to know how long you did manual. It used pager technology and could not react like Rachio. Learn to trust Rachio.
The Rachio zones have used the exact settings from the Hydropoint. I figured this would be a good starting point from which I could then fine tune the advanced settings. Problem is, l don’t know the effect that each Advanced setting has on overall performance.
The zone 1 with the 19" root depth is the natural California native vegetation garden with the decomposed granite path. It uses a drip system. This zone was previously identical to zone 2 until it was relandscaped and changed to the drip system. Tuning this zone has been a trial and error process.
The clay loam soil setting came from the Hydropoint that was from the original set-up from the official Hydropoint installers.
From other posts the best levers to use are the crop efficiency and the managed allowed depletion (move them in small amounts).
I think a best practice it to put drips on their own schedule as they behave differently (no Smart Cycle), which would impact other zones in that schedule that are not drips.
You seem to be right. The “pro’s” set it up on the old system as Clay Loam.
I dug out the soils engineering report (lucky I found it).
The Soils Engineer and the Geologist say the soil is Clayey Silt.
I’ve made the changes and hoping for the best.
Thanks again!
A good resource for guidance to generalized water needs for landscape plants in California is the WUCOLS IV database. http://ucanr.edu/sites/WUCOLS/
Developed by UC Davis and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Water Use Efficiency Program, the database “provides evaluations of the irrigation water needs for over 3,500 taxa (taxonomic plant groups) used in California landscapes.”
The database can be searched by region, plant type, i.e. ground cover, shrub, etc., common name, or botanical name.
Wow that controller got a workout! When it came out around 1999 or so, it was way, way ahead of the rest of the industry. And look at where we are now. WiFi, smartphones and immediate information on demand.
