Hello all, new Rachio 3 user and have been using a fixed schedule on my warm season grass for the past couple weeks while I read and experiment with all of the features. I eventually would like to try a flex monthly schedule so I started playing around with a schedule, which I set my available days to water as any day of the week. My understanding is that this would allow the system to water any day of the week needed, but not that it would actually schedule to run every day. This was not the case, as it had scheduled all 7 zones to run each day, most of them for 10 minutes, with the exception of 2 zones (16 minutes). I’m not new to lawn care, and proper irrigation so I know that deep and infrequent watering is best so I’m wondering if I am doing something wrong here. Thank you in advance.
they only way we can meaningfully answer your question is if we know how you’ve configured your zones. So just pick one zone and post a snapshot of the properties. If you changed any advanced settings, please post a snapshot of that as well.
I attached a pic of one of my zone properties. For advanced, I left everything at default other than the area.
I missed that you said Flex Monthly in the OP. I saw “flex” and automatically thought Daily. My bad. I don’t actually have any experience with fixed schedules, so I’ll defer to other folks to help troubleshoot this.
No problem, thanks anyways. I’m currently running fixed every 2 days, but looking to switch to flex monthly and possibly flex daily down the road. Either way, I can’t figure out why the system would want to water everyday under any schedule type.
With Flex Daily, I’d say maybe because of soil type being sand and would’ve asked to post soil moisture charts and tables.
Fixed schedules do NOT ask you the “available days to water”; they ask you “When would you like to water”. So it will water every single day you’ve chosen, as you describe above. Flex Monthly and Flex Daily schedules DO ask you the “available days to water”, and will space the watering out as they determine.
Only
I understand that. What I’m describing IS for a flex schedule. I created a flex monthly schedule and choose everyday as available days to water and the system is scheduling to water every day.
I based my comment on the above, which I quote below.
[quote]
Hello all, new Rachio 3 user and have been using a fixed schedule on my warm season grass for the past couple weeks while I read and experiment with all of the features. I eventually would like to try a flex monthly schedule so
While I haven’t seen that, it’s not at all uncommon with sandy soil to have to water every day in the summer. It would space out as cooler weather arrives. What are your Advanced settings?
I thought it was clear when I mentioned I had created a flex monthly schedule so I’m sorry for the confusion there.
Even with sandy soil, which is what we have here in South Florida, I’ve never seen a recommendation to water St. Augustine grass everyday, even in the dead of the summer. That’s a sure way to develop shallow roots. Additionally, when I looked further down the calendar it still had me watering everyday, but for shorter durations, like 8 minutes.
I left my advanced settings at default other than the area.
On the other hand, if soil doesn’t retain water and allows it to pass through, like sandy soil would do, there is nothing for the roots to reach out for no matter how much water is provided in a single application.
But it’s easy enough to test whether soil type is the culprit here: just temporarily change the zone to, say, loam, and see how the schedule changes.
I just did as you suggested and changed soil type for 1 zone to loam. All this did was decrease watering time by 5 minutes for that zone, still watering every day.
Still haven’t seen any Advanced settings for the zone(s) in question, nor any current and future graphs & charts that would tell us what’s going on.
I left everything in advanced settings at default other than the area.
I’ve run tests changing different advanced settings as well as soil type and it wants to water everyday. It just adjusts the duration.
With sandy soil, in hot climates, it will probably have to water every day. As weather cools, it will water less often. I think you’ll find it skips a day now and then, as your water applied is 0.22", and you should have days with a lower ET than that (on the graphs and tables).
Thanks for your help. That’s interesting because I went into the calendar to see what it would have scheduled a few months from now and it still watered daily, it just reduces the duration. Also, like I mentioned, changing the soil type didn’t trigger the system to adjust to not water daily. Either way, if that’s just how flex scheduling is going to work then I’ll have to stick with fixed. I’ve never heard anyone recommend watering daily, even with sandy soil in the heat.
Do you actually have sandy soil, or possibly some kind of sandy loam? There is a BIG difference in the water capacity of the two. Have you looked up your address on the web soil survey to confirm, or are you just assuming you have sandy?
Ah, this is a Flex MONTHLY schedule then, not Flex Daily? (Sorry, following several threads at once I get confused easily). If you have a specific interval you want to use, you can specify ever 3 days, or what specific days to water, and Flex Monthly will adapt to that.
I have not, but even if I change soil type to loam it still wants to water daily.
I didn’t see an option to choose specific intervals, just specific days of the week or odd/even. I thought only fixed schedule allowed that.
I guess my understanding of how the system works is that by choosing that it can water daily it will adapt to that and not necessarily water daily. I don’t want to be restricted to only watering specific days. Am I not understanding the system correctly?