What do you think the root depth would be for pernnial rye that was seeded back in october? Assuming proper deep watering since then
I’d assume a root zone depth between 3-6". For scheduling purposes, I’d recommend setting the target root zone you wish to achieve.
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I have mine set at 5", and have for over a month now. My grass is looking green as heck and growing like crazy!
I will say that I am a bit surprised with the watering frequency now that we have warmed up the last week…found it odd that it watered three days in a row last week, and this week is is scheduled for MTTF (I only allow for watering during the week). Before temps warmed up, it was watering once a week, twice max?
Did I forget to adjust something else as the rye took root?
I know we are coming to the end of the season, but it is good knowledge for next year…
Too honest, I felt that the system watered way too frequently for the rye. I don’t like the feeling of wet grass and the rye would be left wet all the time with the default settings. I kept dialing down my coefficient and Allowed Depletion. If the controller was trying to water more than once a week, I dialed down the setting. Check out my stats that I have.
I’ve had these for the last month or so. Now granted, we had some good rain so I took great advantage of this. I even manually set in rain delays when I knew that rain was coming 1-2 days later and it worked like a charm every time. See how great my grass looks. I did feed it every month. I think a good feeding and help offset some of the watering needs.
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Mine hasn’t been too wet. Before the temps jumped my grass was watering once a week. Only recently has it jumped to 4 times a week, and quite honestly, it still isn’t wet feeling. Just seems odd because it is only running for a few minutes each time…seems contradictory to a deep watering.
That’s odd that you’ve noticed a smaller run time. I believe all the things that change your run time would be nozzle, root depth, effeciency, and AW… so if you haven’t changed those, then it should still be running the same time as last month or so. I’m sure the noticeable difference from summer grass is the root depth.
Run time hasn’t changed, just frequency. Each zone runs for 6 minutes, but does so 4 times a week. Again, this is only since the temps shot up to the high 80’s low 90’s…
oh ok, yeah i bet that higher coeffecient with the shallower root depth realy causes the bump up in frequency
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Not that I needed any more to prove to myself how much I love my Rachio…
My side yard controlled by Rachio. I had concerns as to is frequency of watering since the temps in AZ have had a sharp increase.
An area of my backyard controlled by a dumb controller (great controller, Hunter Pro-C, dumb operator). With being tied up with work and my daughters spring break, I was behind the 8-ball ramping up watering. Needless to say, getting my other 16 zone Rachio installed on the main house is on the top of my list…I’m the mean time, I’m mirroring the Rachio watering schedule on the Hunter.
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Wow amazing, thanks for sharing! We love these stories.
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@tmcgahey What a great comparison.
My rye is starting to show burnout with the heat and the fact that I’m watering under the standard numbers. According to the AZ Co-op, you can start planning for transition once nightime min temps go above 60 for 5 days straight, which is what it did… so I’m just going to go that route. I’m assuming that I have some healthy bermuda lying underneath that should sprout quickly with appropriate watering.
Problem is, we had a heat wave, and temps will be back down into the 50’s at night later this week…I think it’s a bit early for the bermuda to come back…
true… and i have a kids birthday party in the yard in 2 weeks, i probably shouldn’t kill off the rye just yet, i think i’ll bump it back up to the default