So yesterday it rained a lot here, from 3 a.m. til 10 a.m. Then the temperature was “mild”, about 79F and it was partially cloudy. It was a little bit humid, not terrible. In the morning yesterday my zones moisture levels were 110%. Then this morning it is showing 20%. Wow. Really? 80% evaporated yesterday with mild humid temperature and not a lot of sun. I picked the Weather Intelligent Plus weather station setting (the aggregated 3000 weather stations to get hyper local whatever). I just switched to a local station that is about a quarter mile from my house, hoping that it would do better in reflecting “hyper local” condition. No change. How does Rachio come up with this soil moisture level info? Rachio schedules a watering session tonight already.
Will need to see your setting for zones in question. Blindly giving tips without this info isn’t productive
Does the weather station near your house record rain? B/c not all of them do. You need to click on that weather station and scroll down to history and make sure it is recording rainfall.
Current zone moisture levels. I ran zones 1 & 2 very briefly this morning to adjust the nozzles (about 3 minutes each), thus the 26% in moisture level as compared to other zones.
Zone 1 settings
Zone 3 settings
Zone 4 settings (note the nozzle type)
Here is the watering schedule to start tonight/tomorrow morning
You seem to have a vey shallow root depth (3") which may explain why Rachio thinks it evaporates quicker than normal. My lawn is set at 6"
You may also want to post the Soil humidity graph (base and more options view)
Yeah my lawn is about 2" top soil and clay underneath. I don’t think my grass can grow roots that deep. I did a soil extractor and it showed.
As for soil humidity graph, it was at Fill level yesterday and today it is at 20%. If I understand it correctly, since I set my AD at 50% and with 20% moisture level shown in the zone, that is 70% moisture remaining. So that’s a 30% drop, not an 80% drop. In any case, back to the question, why is the water duration difference?
@jtuber, under weather intelligence, click on more info on the weather station you have selected and then scroll down to weather history for that station. You should see rain, if you don’t you will need to select another station, otherwise the Rachio thinks you received zero rain.
That’s not a great condition, as the clay will tend to make a barrier, both for water or roots. But if you’re like most, we’re stuck with what we have. Nevertheless, you WANT your roots to grow deeper, probably to about 6", and only by watering deeper will this happen. Plus the clay can hold a lot of moisture, helping to keep your grass from drying out.
Watering to only 3", using your conditions, will only take less than 1/4" of water (0.16 x 3 x 0.5 = 0.24"). Depending on your temperatures, you CAN use up that much water in one day, as may be shown by your Crop Evapotranspiration value for each day. Doubling the depth to 6" will apply twice as much water, allowing it to go 2 or more days between watering.
The only value Rachio uses from a specific local weather station is the Rainfall. Everything else is averaged using all the stations around your area.
That’s a good question. It does appear that all your settings are the same, which should result in the same duration. Perhaps at one point you manually changed one or more durations? Just to be sure, I’d go to the Advanced properties for each zone, change one value (you might change the depth to 6", if you agree it’s a good idea - you can always change them back), and Save it. Do that to all the Zones. Then go to your Schedule, and see how it has updated, and if the times still differ. Sometimes I’ll make a change (which I usually do on the PC) and the Schedule won’t immediately update, so I hit F5 to refresh. I don’t think that’s on the Mobile app, but hopefully it will update properly.
The weather station I am currently referencing accurately reports precipitation. Withput any rainyesterday it was hot 90F. My moisture level was 20%. Today no rain and no watering and moisture level for the zone is reported at 110%. What the … This is so messed up.
Please post the table under the moisture graph. It will tell what’s up.
No need. After I complained here in the morning the moisture now is accurate. It shows 0% for all zones like it should be. The graph is also different now, of course. This thing is driving me crazy.