Hi, I just installed the Rachio Gen 3 and I am looking to setup my first schedule. I’m just outside of Minneapolis. So… I have a few issues that make this hard. 1st my soil is clay… and when I say clay, I really mean it… I could take a shovel dig up some backyard and make pot out it.
Also I have a few spots in my yard that are… well super wet because I have the lowest yard in the neighborhood my yard can get swampy in the back. It seems like the ground just does not absorb water.
My house faces due north and because it a new neighborhood there are no mature trees. So the front get very little sun and the back gets a ton…
What all this does is basically on all the edges of the yard it’s squishy. Anyway… I’d just like to know where to start… Advanced daily looks good, but how do I tell it is area is almost always wet?
For a Flex schedule type, all I can think of is set your rear zones to a really low crop coefficient— basically the lower the crop coefficient is the less water is being used and evaporated. You may need to experiment with that setting and run “simulations” in the Moisture Chart to see if waterings are reasonably infrequent. This may take some time guessing and checking. A fixed schedule using daily interval might be easier and more predictable.
I agree with @Kubisuro with lowering the crop coefficient. Part of my back yard just does not drain. I tried all sorts of things, and then late last year it dawned on me to lower the crop coefficient, and that seems to have done the trick. You will most likely have to monitor it for awhile and play with it a bit. Unfortunately, I think it will be some trial and error, but it should work.
