I’m setting up my flex daily and playing around with it. Discovering with a cup test by rainbird 3500s only put out about .35in/hr which is believable with our low pressure.
My question is all recommendations are to water very deep but less frequently but I notice the flex daily keeps times about 21 mins. Should I manipulate this longer? Seems it will take many waterings to catch up after heat. Also not sure how deep 21 mins would water with my setup.
Also if I feel I need to water further will flex daily keep track of waterings done outside of the schedule for soil moisture?
I like the idea though and watching it adjust in real time makes me want to stick with it.
Nice job knocking out a catch cup test!!! Did you set the nozzle inches per hour to .35" under the advanced setting?
Rachio will track all watering done, if the zone run was initiated in the app. If you manually turn on a valve, it has no way of tracking that.
Thanks for the response! So if I notice that things are drying out too quickly is the a way to touch things up from within the schedule or not really
If things appear to dry out faster, plants wilting or grass not recovering to uprightish after stepped on, then you can try adding 5-10% to crop evapotranspiration. That will let Flex Daily know your plants are using more water than the default. If things still seem dry well before another run,possibly add another 5% etc
First thing is to make sure you have the nozzle PR set up right? So you need make sure you enter your catch cup results into the “nozzle inches per hour” field.
Depending on your watering practices prior to Rachio, your roots might be on the shallow side (watering too frequently). I like using root depth myself because I can easily visualize the concept of shallow roots needing water more frequently. Maybe bump the root depth up a couple inches. This will force the system to water a bit more frequently.
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Thanks! Yes I configured the settings. I was able to get the times up to 26 with the recommended settings. Appreciate all the help!
Still seems low to me. My Hunter MP Rotators put down .58"/hr and my zone is running for 42 minutes. What are the other settings you have?
@tmcgahey Appreciate all the help! My KGB sod is partially out of dormancy and I feel like it needs lots of water after a really dry start… Not looking so hot so this timing is fitting.
Here’s one of my zones. Almost everything is the same in other zones. At the moment they are very dry but reads doesn’t need water for 4 days.
Settings look pretty good. I’m guessing your Sandy Loam is to blame for the difference…otherwise, your settings are pretty darn close to mine…until I flip mine over to warm season grass as the bermuda comes out of dormancy.
Keep us updated on how things look!
