Watering time to avoid fungus?

Schedules & Zones
1

Hi,

In North Carolina so we fight fungus every year. Looking for advice on what time of day to water during the brutal hot summer months?

Thanks!

2

Watering in the evening is fungus prone due to water sitting at the surface overnight, while watering during the day will suffer from a much higher evaporation rate and become a waste/inefficient. That leaves you with early morning watering. Best time is early morning before sunrise, then the sun helps dry the grass surface.

Hope this helps.

1 Like
3

The only problem is if you are on a well like me. My well only produces 6 gpm so in order to water my 14 zones it takes me over 9 hours a day if all zones were to run 45 minutes each. My PR is roughly .31 inches per hour so there is no way to get the 1/2 inch twice a week. So I am forced to start watering at sunset most nights. I will get red thread but not much else.

4

Thanks for responses. I’m on a well but with great gpm thankfully, but large yard takes about 4 hrs to water.

Would you set to finish at sunrise and have grass wet all that time, or would you finish watering after sunrise to reduce time spent with grass wet?

5

you can always split the zones into groups, water the groups on different days. group 1 on mon, thu, group 2 on tue, fri, group 3 on wed, sat… just create different schedules for each group and specify which days, then you’re spreading those 9 hours over as many groups as you create :wink:

6

I think going a bit past sunrise is fine - the only problem is Rachio does not support offsets :frowning: it’s either sunrise or a fixed time - if you the fixed time route, get ready to update that maybe monthly and at daylight savings borders. Consider splitting the zones into groups that you water on different days?

7

I thought of doing that but it defeats flex daily.

8

You’re allowed to set up groups of zones that run on different days with flex daily. The only prohibitions are 1) you can’t have schedules of any type that overlap and 2) you can’t have a zone in more than one active flex daily schedule.

I’ve used (in NE Texas, daily highs 30º - 100º F) two flex daily schedules with 2 sets of 4 zones, each scheduled 3 alternate days per week, ending at an early AM time, for 3 years without incident. Extra day is for mowing & maintenance. Because you can fine tune a flex schedule with advanced settings, you can “teach” your vegetation to put down roots through your soil profile’s depletion zone - the only place you care about, resulting in infrequent deep irrigation regardless of the temperature. I’m sold on the concept of “stressed is best” for grass.

Disclosures: I have just 1 drip zone that supports trees in one of the schedules (3 days/week), so I’m a novice there. I also have a Tempest and an EveryDrop that significantly assist in conserving water. And, seeding or sodding just requires fixed scheduling.

Daylight savings time is a complication for you. Your plants won’t care. Try “finish by n:00 AM”.

9

So with 14 zones.
Monday- Zones 2,3,4,5
Tuesday- 6,7,8,9
Wednesday-10,11,12,13,14
Thursday- 2,3,4,5
Friday-6,7,8,9
Saturday-10,11,12,13,14
Sunday- off

10

exactly, see how that works :muscle:

11

Sure… that’ll work. You could try 2 flex daily schedules running 3 times a week too. It’ll probably depend on how much water you can apply when necessary.

Good luck.