Extra water

In the height of TX heat my zones can get behind and never catch up due to more evaporations than the calculated time of the zone can deliver. I can only water MWF and need the water time to increase when the zone is not able to fill in the allotted time. It seems it will run shorter sometimes, but not longer. Any advice

If your Flex Daily is not providing enough water in the summer to last for the 2-3 days you require, a solution may be to increase the water you apply each time. Lowering the Nozzle Inches per Hour for any zones lacking enough water would help. Other factors can do that too, but can lengthen the time between watering, so may not be best. Yeah, I’d try reducing the Nozzle Inches per Hour, maybe by 10% at first, more if required, to see if that helps you out. With longer watering times, make sure the Auto cycle & soak is turned on.

@royce Something else to think about - Rachio does "…not recommend using Flex Daily schedules if you cannot water more than 4 days per week. Do a search in Google for “rachio daily flex watering restrictions” and you will find the info from Rachio.

If you want to have this lawn getting more water then adjust the crop coefficient in 10% increments upwards. 10%, wait a few weeks and if that is not enough then add another 10% to the crop coefficient.

But also, check your root depth for the grass in your lawn.
My experiences is that for lawns getting the root depth right is essential. Pull out a few patches of grass here and there, ideally using a soil probe. Check the root depth. Set the root depth to what they actually are, maybe add half an inch if you want to train your roots to go deeper than what they are.

Hmm interesting but what they are warning about is what I want it to do. I hAve subsurface drip and with cycle soak I can handle the extra water without runoff. My problem is the only way I get more water is to constantly tweak root depth or nozzle rate. I have spent a lot of time getting those right and shouldn’t have to mess with them.

Thanks I have the root depth set properly maybe a little too deep but this was to get the water time high enough. Increasing crop coefficient will show the zone emptying faster, but unless I change nozzle rate or root depth the max run time seems to stay the same. Then I end up with a zone that is always empty and runs 100% every day.

@ParB (or any others that would like to comment), you mentioned soil probe for checking root depth. I presume that it may be used for getting a plug to test the soil composition too. I did not measure it, but I believe the roots were insanely long after winter after installation (I had to take care of a sprinkler issue). I also know that I have seen the grass get stressed from underwatering. When I say insanely long, I believe in this one spot, the roots were longer than the shovel blade. I would like to get the soil and roots dialed in and would rather not use a shovel each place. We have a fair amount of sand with what I would call thin layers of clay which probably helps allow the roots to grow nicely. Any recommendations on a soil probe and length?

I use this probe
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00792URP0/

Thank you . . . a bit on the pricey side. It may be worth it though to get an accurate soil sample and root depth especially in what might be my circumstances.

Its definately pricey. When i bought it my soil was so compacted that i could not get a screw driver to penetrate more than an inch into the soil. I got this because it seemed built solid and i could use my feet as leverage to get it into the soil. For that it worked well.

Now that i have done a bunch of work to reduce the compaction of my soil i’m not so sure i would have gone with this exact model. But at the time i was happy i did.

What is your objective? If you feel you need more frequent watering then adjust the crop coefficient higher. If you want deeper watering then root depth and manage depletion to something reasonable is the way to go.

Between those two you should find the right solution assuming you got your nozzles setup right. Worst case do a catch cup test.

I doubt that I need all the leverage, etc., but it seems to create the longest core of most. I keep going back and forth, not sure which I will do yet.