I think I’m going to go the catch cup route and then do all new schedules based on those results to “reset” the Rachio algo.
You’re right - durations on the lawn are all over an hour with cycle and soak set.
Also for very hot and dry weather, that I have been having my system usually would water ever other day and my lawn is loving that. I saw an earlier screen shot you had static crop on, and second you had dynamic. This is the first year with dynamic and so far I think it’s been working great for us. The months of July and august it bumped up to 84% which allowed it to water every other day. May June it was in the 70’s which was watering every two days. One other thing I change to get it to water more was changing from some shade sunlight to full sun.
The key is the catch cups or at-least figure out how long it takes for you to put down an inch of water. Your efficiency at 90% will also drive your duration time down, default is at 70%.
How often has your system been watering in this summer heat?
Just discovered dynamic so adjusted that today.
We are allowed to water two days a week for grass.
Any thoughts on just starting over with the schedule to see what it defaults to for duration?
Huge piece of information that was missing that will affect everything else. This explains why you will need much more water on days that you can water.
You cannot use a flex daily or flex month schedule if you have these type of watering restrictions, you’ll need to do fixed. If you’re only watering twice a week and the lawn is already struggling, I would not be concerned with scaling water back because of high usage.
Hmm - I have the actual schedule to only allow for those two days so it’s following the rules. -I think achieving the same thing as using fixed?
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Do you know what nozzles you have?
Hunter MP Rotators are 0.4”/hr square and 0.45”/hr for triangle.
Hunter MP800s are 0.8”/hr square and 0.9”/hr for triangle
RainBird MPR and HE-Van are 1.58-1.99”/hr depending on square vs triangle and 8, 10, 12, or 15 nozzle
The RainBird R-Van is 0.6”/hr
Rotors depend on the nozzle number inserted.
I find that Rachio OVERestimates the crop coefficient for lawns. I recommend looking at the Rachio dynamic crop coefficient at the beginning of each month and subtracting 0.1-0.2 off of that number and changing it to static.
Here is an example chart of how turf crop coefficients change throughout the year. It depends on your location and warm season vs cool season.
Maybe you can help me understand how the “area” makes any difference. I think I said it somewhere else… if I set one of my zones to 100 sq ft or 10,000 sq feet in the advanced settings, it doesn’t change the amount of water. And now that I think about it, seems to make sense that it didn’t change my amount of water because it doesn’t know how many sprinklers cover the area that is entered, so I am guessing it is assuming I have the right amount of sprinklers to cover the area that is entered. The other settings under the advanced menu do make changes to the amount of water, yet not the area entered.
I’m not sure that information is correct or not. I am new at this, BUT I have restrictions that I can only water on Wed, Fri, and Sun. I set my schedule to Flex daily and it works just fine by only watering on those days since I indicated those days in the schedule.
Right. Same thing I did and it works fine which I why I say the other information seems incorrect. We can use Flex daily schedule even if watering is restricted for some days in the area.
@F4NavyPilot The problem becomes if the system skips a day that it’s supposed to run, then you essentially loose your one opportunity to run that day.
Additionally flex with watering restrictions is not recommended by Rachio themselves. Link below
- What if I have restrictions?
Flex Daily schedules allow you to configure watering to one of three modes:• Any Day
• Specific days of the week (i.e. Tuesday and Friday)
• Odd/even intervalWe do not recommend using Flex Daily schedules if you cannot water 4 days or more per week as the dynamic nature of Flex Daily schedules could up watering on each non-restricted day trying to catch up to your optimal soil moisture level. For example, if you can only water on Tuesday and Thursday, and the Flex Daily schedule watered on Tuesday, on Thursday it will determine if you can wait until next Tuesday. If not, it will water again on Thursday. The recommended setting is Any Day.
Alright I switched the schedules fixed - watering times dropped from flex daily will keep you posted on the results. And circle back after I do the catch cup test.
I’d reset every thing back to default, do the catch cup and adjust the nozzle inches per hour. In addition to resetting to default I would also delete out the schedules and re-set them up (seems like you did - but delete them out and default yourself) I’ve seen cases where for some reason the schedules won’t fully take any advanced setting changes. This has almost always occurred when one changes the durations of the zones from the schedule rather than from advanced settings.
Make sure that you’re using a reliable PWS, one that is close by and make sure it’s reporting correctly. I have a PWS close by but for some reason it stops reporting during a certain timeframe of the day; almost like a wifi schedule to turn off. I’ve selected a second closest and haven’t had an issue.
I recommend cycle and soak, usually smart cycle & soak doesn’t turn on or doesn’t do it long enough unless you have some steep hills. I have been using a manual cycle and soak and it has been working wonders for us, even on flat ground since our dirt is so compacted.
Dynamic crop has also worked very well for us this year especially with keeping up with the summer months and heat (every other day watering) vs the cooler months every 3 day watering. This may vary for others since I’m using flex daily and I have no restrictions.
Proof in the pudding
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Can you tell me how dynamic crop works please?
It is a relatively new setting under the advanced settings which adjusts crop coefficient values automatically throughout the year. This better represents the real Kc values through the plants growing cycle and/or season, rather than the “average” that is used as the default Rachio values.