Tree canopy watering adjustments

Hi Rachio community. I’m sure this has been discussed previously but did a search with no luck.
We are blessed with a back yard that backs on to a forested city park. The large maple tree have grown quite the canopy over the years and will actually block any light to medium rain. Is there a way to make allowance for this in the zone setup? Or perhaps some other method?
Thank you.

I hadn’t thought about trees blocking rain in this way before (the light blockage is obvious); I guess I thought that some rain would make its way through the leaves to the ground, some would be absorbed by the leaves and benefit the tree, potentially reducing water needed from the roots which can rob the grass, but of course some will simply evaporate before benefiting anything. I do have a very large pine tree, which doesn’t really block much, but does absorb a lot of water, so added a zone (actually a separate timer) to add water around the trunk so as to reduce the water taken from the lawn by the tree.

I can’t really think of a good way to accommodate this, other than to specify less sun for the zone, and possibly increase water a bit. Which counter each other, so maybe doing nothing isn’t that bad. I do know from experience that a full canopy can prevent enough sun from reaching below the tree that grass can have a rough time, and often requires a change to a more shade-tolerant grass.

Yeah. I can tell you that large leaved trees such as maples, can form a dense canopy. My beds under the canopy can actual look dry after a light to medium rain. The system assumes all beds were watered equally but that is not necessarily the case. I guess perhaps I can tweak the amount of sun and fool the system that way? I need to look into it. If anyone has other suggestions, please do. Thanks

Is that particular zone(s) all covered by canopy? Are you using Flex Daily schedules, or fixed?

If fixed, you could put just those zones into their own schedule and omit any weather intelligence skips for rain. If running Flex Daily, I’m not sure there will be a way, since it relies so heavily on the PWS system to calculate watering needs.

Good point. Perhaps I will change from flex daily.

Many thanks