I am using the flex daily schedule to water turf over a septic system. The rotors I am using are Toro ProStream XL with the correct nozzles. I have a pressure pump keeping the system running at least 50PSI and a flow rate of 12 GPM from my well.
Is there some setting so that my system knows to water less over the septic field since the septic field generally gets watered since the gray water leaches out into the soil?
I know its not ideal, but thats the way the system was designed. I simply want the zone to run just to make sure the soil is moist.
At default the system wants to water over the field for 1hour. This would saturate the ground causing for a stinky situation inside.
In most states it is illegal to irrigation a septic field. That being said I am guessing you will attempt to irrigate it anyway. I would set your system to water 50% less than the controllers recommended amount that it wants it running at and run it a dedicated schedule at a fixed two days a week only. .make sure the zone has the proper root depth of the grass set. By default the controller sets it at 6" change it to 3" . You may need a soil probe to see how deep your lawn roots are.
While not over a septic field, I have a similar problem for an an area in my yard that just does not drain well. My soil is Silty Clay, so I set the soil in the problem area to Clay, which changes the Infiltration Rate from .15 to .1. That helped A LOT. You could also try dropping the Crop Coefficient a bit, say at least 5% – so, for example, if ir’s currently 80%, try 75%. If it’s still too much, you could try upping the nozzle inches per hour so that the system thinks its watering more than it actually is.
I would try each tweak one at a time and watch it for a week or so. You might be able to leave it on Flex Daily.
Not only do I run sprinklers, but I also flood irrigate the front lawn where my leach field is with 8" of water…then again, this is Arizona, and we have no “ground water” to worry about.
Nope not illegal, don’t know where you heard about that, could you imagine having to install a roof over a septic field so that it never got watered over.
