What type of soil do I select? I’m in zone 7a.
See attached photo.
For rainbird 5000 what estimated water rate do I put if I have a 2.0 nozzle? I know I need to do a catch cup test, but just want an estimate for now.
See attached photo.
Impossible to tell soil from a picture, IMHO.
You can do a mason jar test to really dial in your soil type, but if you use the Web Soil Survey, it is usually pretty darn accurate (short of lots of non-native soils being brought into your yard).
Also, those aren’t Rainbird 5000. That would be a rotor body, you have spray heads. What you have is the 15 series spray nozzles on a Toro body. Based on the manufacturer spec sheet, you can see the PR. These vary pretty wildly based on system pressure.
Sorry, the sprinkler head pictured is not the one I am questioning. I have a lot of rainbird 5000 elsewhere that I am interested in. I asked because rachio assumes 1.0 but from my understanding in my area most people use the 2.0 nozzle, so I am confused about the flow versus precipitation numbers.
BTW the sprinkler techs in my area don’t even speak in psi, they just say the water pressure is 12gpm and so I can support 6 sprinklers with 2.0 nozzles per zone. And they want to water for 20 minutes a day for about 3 days a week.
You’d have to take a look at the nozzle on your 5000 series rotors. You need to identify what you have, and sometimes you can have a mix. https://www.rainbird.com/media/4173 Looks like everything is averaged about .6"/hr.
Unless you have a flow meter, you really can’t test GPM easily without knowing water pressure. Water pressure is a simple thing to test. It is true that gpm is important to know how many heads can be run at once.
Based on the PR of the 5000 series nozzles (assume somewhere around .6"/hr, 20 minutes at a time seems a low to me. Each water cycle is going to put down about .12" of water, hardly enough to dampen the surface, let alone water the root zone.
thanks for the insights! The datasheet you linked is for mpr and I don’t have that. You can use this one instead: https://www.rainbird.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/2018-02/ts_5000Series.pdf
So it’s more like .3 in/hour. So yeah, 3 times a week, 20 minutes a day is .3" a week. And I need at least one inch. Not to mention that I don’t have true triangle or square head to head coverage. So I am very confused about this all. I just know that several sprinkler techs from different companies told me the same thing, so I am trying to works backwards from 20 minutes a day and 3 days a week (maybe 4 in the summer) and somehow get to 1" of water per week.
So unless my math is terrible, I need my rainbird 5000 rotors to be running for 1 hour a day, 3 times a week to get 1" of water.
To test the gpm of my water source, I just used a 5 gallon bucket and tested a spigot next to my sprinkler water source. It was dead on, so I figured it must be set by the town as the sprinkler guys knew it by heart.
BTW im currently changing out most of my sprinkler heads to rainbird 5000+s for rotors and rainbird 1800 rvans for fixed sprays. I’ll look into that mpr nozzles for the 5000s, I am going to need it if my math is right!
I’ll do the catch cup test and the mason jar cup test and hopefully I will have some sort of aha moment about the math.
But for now, what can I put in rachio for nozzle inches per hour? Is it asking for precipitation rate which would be .3" or flow rate which would be 2.0.
I use the rainbird 5000+ PRS Sam throughout my property with the 2.0 nozzle i have my set at 0.61 I also use the RD1800 spray bodies to match the precipitation as far as the soil goes like @tmcgahey said it’s hard to know for example I’m in zone 7 here in the east coast so I know it’s sandy soil and that’s what I have plug in on the advanced settings each of my lawn zones run for 58 minutes each and it has been working really well
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You’d want to put in thr inches per per hour from thr spec sheets, so somewhere around .6". If you do a catch cup test later on, great! That will help dial that in, as well as show you efficiencies.
thanks for the feedback!
58 minutes for zones with the 5000+ ? Seems like a lot to me.
I know if you have rvans on the 1800, 58 minutes sounds about right. But sounds odd on the 2.0 nozzle. But this is just from reading stuff online. Ill post back with what I end up with after the catch cup test.
Well it depends on what is your available water intake roots depth and the nozzle inches per hour what type of grass soil and sun exposure this settings play a big role on how Rachio calculate your run time I haven’t done a catch cup test
In spring time I start with 2” roots depth and each zones run for about 32 minutes I think when temperatures start warming up I then gradually move back to 6” I learned this method from the 
of flex daily @tmcgahey who help me dialing my settings and the vegetation are happier than ever before
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Well, again, think about it. In a perfect world, those 5000’s will put down about .6"/hr. So, 58 minutes is going to put down right about .6" of water. That soinds about perfect to me…
I have the Hunter MP Rotator nozzles that put out about .55"/hr, and my zones run a little over an hour each time. During the heat of the summer here in AZ, my grass will water every other day.
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Trying to figure out the math…I only need 1" of water per week right? Sounds like your are putting down more than that…So if we round down to .5" per hour since we dont have perfect conditions, I only need a run time of 2 hours a week right? So for 3 times a week, I would do 40 minutes a day? Still seems like a lot as thats runnign the sprinklers 3.5 hours for my 5 zones.
Maybe for it to reach deeper on the roots, I would do an hour twice a week? But Thats a 5 hour run time for me. I like to start it at 7:30, so it would be done after noon!
Anyhow, still waiting for the catch cup test kit to arrive. Hopefully that will make sense of the math.
When it is consistently over 110 during the day, and BARELY cools off to below 100 at night, 1" a week isn’t going to cut it. Realistically, it comes down to what does it take to get water at the root level. The University of Arizona (my alma mater, Go Cats!) publishes fantastic documents from their ag program about watering. This is what they say:
How often should I water ?
Water a bermudagrass lawn once every 2-3 days during the summer.
Even during the hottest part of the year, most lawns do not need to be watered every day.
By watering only once every 2-3 days, you promote deeper root growth
and that makes your lawn more water efficient.
In the winter, Bermuda-grass lawns go dormant and need no supplemental watering.
If you overseed with ryegrass in winter, water every 3 to 7 days after it is established.How long should I water ?
How long you should water depends upon two factors:
- How quickly your sprinklers put water on your lawn.
- The amount of water your grass needs to stay healthy.
Here’s a test to determine if water is needed :
Try pushing the 6" long shaft of a screwdriver into the ground.
If it goes in easily, don’t water.
So, what matters is getting the water to that root zone. Different grass types will have different root depths, but bermuda grass can have a root depth of 6-9".