My soil in my backyard, which is seeded (last fall) is clay with top soil on top of it. The soil isn’t in great condition, and my lawn care company is slowing upping the fertilizer values to improve the health of the soil. The result is that I am needing more watering that what the flex is giving me. Last few days its been 90F in NW Indiana, and the grass is slowly browning. What setting should/can I change to get more watering in my back yard zones? Also, would it be beneficial to move to the flex monthly ? I have available Water at 0.17/in/in, root depth 6in, allowed deflection 50%, efficiency 70%, crop co 80%
Do you want more frequency or more duration?
You can make the roots more shallow, which will bump frequency.
You can bump AD up which will increase frequency.
Your Crop co is already pretty high, but you could bump that and it would increase frequency.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Your questions are good questions, so I don’t really know. But the browning tells me its not getting enough water, regardless…
And idea/suggestions on another AD number? The AD and Crop Co are all default number. Only ones I changed was the Available Water #.
Do you know what type of soil, and how deep that top layer is?
I’d make a quick change to the root depth up to 4" and see what that does. With relatively new grass, in poor soil, chances are the roots may not have made it down. On that same token, is your clay like a hardpan clay, which is almost impenetrable by grass roots and water (which goes back to my original question)?
No I do not. Ill have to inquire next time my lawn service comes out as they did a soil sample and sent me all the info, but did not tell me the “type” of soil or how deep the top layer is. I believe they measured down 6 inches for the soil sample, and my black dirt that was laid down prior to the seed / sod, was onto of clay.
I will change the root depth to 4"
As a side note, the people who installed my Hunter Sprinkers told me that The rotary heads I have are a pgp with a 2.0 gpm nozzle in them. The fixed spray are pro-spray 4” with variant nozzles. Some would have had the 12’ fixed spray nozzles, some would have the 15’ nozzles, dependent on the area they needed to cover. The fixed spray use approximately 1/2- 1 gpm. I did not make any changes in advanced settings for the Nozzle Inches Per Hour
If you want more watering duration, lower the in/hr. This setting is telling the controller how much water is hitting your grass in inches every hour. By lowering this value, you’re telling the controller it needs to run longer to get a certain amount of water on the grass. This is the sprinkler precipitation rate which is measured in inches of water / hour. Google “catch can test” if you’re not familiar with how to measure the precipitation rate on the lawn.
In addition to pr, the crop coefficient will add or subtract water. All other settings seem to just juggle frequency and duration.
New to the site, but question quite simple. If I want to water more often, would you set the system at 20% or 80% in the advance setting? Their example of 50% is equal on both sides so it’s difficult to know which way to go!
I would not touch allowed depletion. Just increase crop coefficient 5-15%.
