Just finished reading the Web Soil Survey guide by azdavidr. Before I change anything wanted to get some validation. The guides links about this are broken.
What soil type is closet to “fine sandy loam”?
The site showed my surveyed area to have a 0.13 Available Water rating. Am I good to change this to 0.13 for all my zones? Currently Rachio chose 0.17
Does it even matter what soil type you choose if you go ahead and change Available water afterwards?
I’ve had a lawn for the last 10 years. With the amount of organic material being added over the years I would assume its not the same as the soil survey.
Web Soil Survey Site
Typical profile
H1 - 0 to 11 inches: fine sandy loam
H2 - 11 to 51 inches: very gravelly sandy clay loam
Unless you trucked in loads of soil, adding some organic material really isn’t going to change much more than the top inch of soil, if you are lucky…which isn’t where the roots live.
If the soil survey says you have fine sandy loam, which isn’t an option in Rachio (there are hundreds of soil types, Rachio has most of the main players), you can manually change the AW, and you are correct, the “type” of soil kind of becomes a moot point. Just remember, if you ever push the defaults button, it will go back to .17".
I agree . . . it seems like the soil type should by used by cycle & soak. Mine lists “sandy loam” with an AWC of “0.05 cm/cm”. I hear so many talking about clay needing C&S to prevent runoff and my sod people said sandy need it to prevent run though (that is what I am calling it anyway). Ooops, I just realized I set Rachio to “loamy sand” and AWC to “0.07 in/in”. Now, I am wondering how these will make a difference.
