currently on flex monthly, and moving to flex daily. I hate the fact that I have to create another schedule, and can not just modify the existing schedules.
I have set up my yard map finally, and have not committed to creating the new schedules yet. I have a couple questions before I continue:
What is available water in/in for? I am using municipal water, so the only limit is the amount of money I am willing to spend.
What is crop coefficient? and how do I determine this item?
My nozzles are rated at Gallons per minute, so how do I convert that to inches per hour? I did the cup testing 20 years ago with the original rainbird controller, but I have no idea what those values are now, and I am not really eager to go thru all of that again.
Similarly related, I have a mix of various fixed nozzles in my zones: 1/4, 1/2, full, adjustable throw patterns, as well as varying foot width (8’, 10’, 14’) nozzles, and I have flower beds in the same zone as large grass areas. How do I compensate for that?
yes, that is what I will eventually have to
do, but I do not want to kill my yard in the process. I need to figure out what the other settings are, and make sure they are set correctly.
The zone settings are the complicated part. They will transfer to whatever schedule you set. Crop coefficient is how well the crop uses water. It’s the only setting other than nozzle rate that adds or subtracts total water. The others trade freq for duration in some way.
It is good to hear that you’re interested in getting into Flex Daily! I completely understand the frustration with not being able to change a schedule’s schedule type. Right now, I would recommend disabling the Flex Monthly schedule in case you want to go back to it.
I’d be happy to provide any insights can on moving over to the Flex Daily. The first thing I would like to know is how the Flex Monthly schedule has been working for you? Is it under watering or over watering? Is it watering too often or not enough?
If the Flex Monthly schedule has been working for you, you likely will not need to make any configurations to zone settings. The Flex Daily schedule that you create will have very similar watering durations and frequency. Both Flex Monthly and Flex Daily calculate watering durations/frequency using the same ET based watering principles.
You might experience different watering times/frequency if your Flex Monthly has mixed vegetation types (grass and shrubs on one schedule) because a Flex Monthly schedule with mixed vegetation has to calculate one optimal interval for vegetation that has different watering needs. Flex Daily is watering each individual zone asynchronously.
I would recommend just taking one zone off of the Flex Monthly and creating Flex Daily with just that one zone. If you change the color of the schedule in the app, you can review the schedules side by side on the calendar.
I hope that helps. I’ll keep an eye out for your reply.
@Lars Crop Coefficient has got to be complicated to determine without historical observation? I have varying nozzle rates in each zone, and the fact that I have zones that have grass, flowers, and trees on a single valve complicates matters further.
I inherited the sprinkler zones from the previous owner, and they have worked fairly well on the previous controller. Now, my two grass only zones are getting over watered, and it is hard to tell if the heat waves/high humidity we have been having are causing the flowers to die off and resurrect, but my yard is definitely dealing with extremes all around.
@dane when you speak of “change the color of the schedule”… what are you talking about? I have not seen an option for schedule color. Is this related to the “grass”,“flower”,etc.?
FYI: The color is according to the schedule. If you edit the schedule, you can change the color. This does not have to do with the zone, which can be “grass”, “trees”, “flowers”, or whatever.
@Thomas_Lerman hmmm… I do not see where I can change the color, but I am not sure what benefit that has. Right now I have two schedules: one for Morning, and one for Evening. Where do you see a color option?
I will keep looking, but I would rather like to know what the items I mentioned in the original post are doing, and how to calculate their values.
I do use the web thru an iFrame in a Home-Assistance setup, so I have not looked at the iOS app in awhile. The only real difference I saw on install was the lack of a mapping option on the web, but I might have to look at the UI more closely. I have multiple devices (Android, iOS, MacOS, and Windows), so it might be worthwhile to go thru each page and take note of the differences?
In any case, I am not sure what use changing the color would do for me. I am more interested in finding answers to the 4 questions I have. I think I have my answer for #3 (and possibly #4 as an aggregate setting) by using the water meter. I did not think of that, but I am going to look at that this weekend.
Thanks for sharing the idea though. Learning the interface is definitely something I am trying to spend more time doing as time permits.
I have my lawn on a “green” schedule and drip on “blue”. They make sense to me. I like it as the calendar shows the icon for what is scheduled for the day, etc.
On your fourth question, those can get tricky. Hopefully the coverage is consistent in the grass and also consistent in the flower beds. It might take setting it for one and seeing how to adjust it so it does not overwater in one and underwater in the other. I have the same sprinkler bodies, but different heads, adjustable width & somewhat one distance with the major distance as different heads. However, I have not mixed beds (flower or garden), trees, or lawn at all (after my last set of changes for trees).
Your color code idea sounds like a good visual. I unfortunately have varying vegetation in all my zones. I only have one zone that is all grass, the rest are a mix of Fruit trees, Plumeria, hibiscus, roses, tuberose, and grass. Some of my root depths maybe unmeasurable as some of my fruit trees are over 30 years old.
Thanks for the link. I think I ran across that before, but decided I did not want to go thru all the hassle again. I spent considerable time finding sprinkler heads to make sure the areas were getting enough water on my previous manual timer, but I lack time to go to that effort again. It sounds like I would be better suited to just stay on a manual schedule or re-landscape and redo the zones accordingly?
