What is up with Rachios Soil Moisture?

Well, changing root depth should for sure change the frequency. You are on Flex Daily, right?

You could try upping Crop Coefficient to see what that does.

Also, how many emitters and what flow rate do they have? 1"/hr might be on the high side…

Thanks! I changed the root depth to 6” and the crop coefficient to 100%. I’m doing a quick run right now as it’s been a while. It’s saying my next watering is going to be on the 12th now, which seems weird after a 45 min. quick run.

I have a mix of 2 gph emitters and 4gph spike emitters. I generally do one per plant, sometimes 2.

Here’s a similar zone on a different controller (same model).

Changing the root depth to 6” and the CC to 100% right now, I get this moisture graph.

matt8573 what plants are in your zones. I didn’t see you say anything about trees, but tmcgahey dis assume that from your root depth. At the very least, it appears you have plants which are watered individually, which is a horse of a very different color.

If you have trees, or even separate shrubs, then 6" root depth is not enough. Perhaps your original 25.6" depth was correct. But I find Rachio more difficult to fine-tune with trees and bushes using the standard settings. Okay, I just don’t understand the method as well that way, so hesitate.

And as mentioned, if this is for shrubs and trees, your previous settings resulting in watering every 9 days or so in no-very-hot weather is probably fine. With their deeper roots, and the fact that /usually/ shrubs or trees have some kind of ground cover that keeps the moisture in, watering less often is fine.

HOWEVER - you mention you’re growing “tropicals that require relatively moist soil”. I’m not sure that Rachio’s Trees or Shrubs setting would be appropriate for that.

Finally, ADMIN Can we please separate this topic beginning at matt8573’s first post?
Following all the charts and such are complex enough without mixing two different user’s posts with two very different situations. Lacking that, matt8573 could you please start a separate topic with your question?

Yes. Flex Daily.
Not sure where to go on the coeefficient, would need Rachio for that one.

That zone 8 has 4 Rainbird 5000 heads rated at 0.2 - 1.01"/hr. I’m closer to 0.8" out the box with the PRS model but with overlap and triangle configuration I’m confortable with the 1". But due to the trees over there, if you think bringing it help I’ll try it out.

Rain sensor just deactivated so tomorrow will be the first sprinkle with the updated app and adjusted config.

For now, I’d just leave it at whatever Rachio says it should be for your type of grass.

If you think 0.8" is closest, then use that. This is a very critical setting, so use what you know is best, or if possible, measure it in some way (flow vs time or catch cups).

Let’s hope tomorrow is the start of a good trend. What amount of water is scheduled for tomorrow?

Gary, Could you post the Moisture Chart for this week and next?

So, much like Matt above - how am I supposed to dial this in short of getting catch cups, pulling soil cores and measuring root depth, etc? Isn’t the point of a $300 irrigation controller “It just works”?

Flex daily is literally killing my lawn.

@Brien If you don’t want to invest the time and energy needed to set up a flex Daily schedule you may be more satisfied with a flex Monthly or even fixed schedule.

It can only “Just Work” if it’s set up correctly. If your irrigation contractor installed only 4 spray heads in your front yard with 3/8" pipe, and your neighbor had 8 spray heads in the same area with 1/2" pipe, the actual flow to the zone will be quite different. Even with the same type of spray head. Rachio uses an average value for an decent installation. My yard is poorly done, so it would underwater, as would the first example. Rachio can’t know that. You can either make adjustments as you go along, depending on whether you are over- or under-watering (and Rachio tells you how to do that), or you can spend a bit of time to calculate Nozzle Inches per Hour closer.

What Rachio is doing is akin to selling a cruise control to fit any car, from VW Bug to Corvette; The Chevy owner might be able to install it and forget about it, but the Vette owner is probably going to have to calibrate it a bit.

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The system ran this morning. Unfortunately, the irrigation page even in the latest version of the Android app is still broken. It fails to update showing the watering date/event and resulting moisture content. It does not matter whether you go to the soil moisture page or moisture table, when returning to the Irrigation page the values are not correct. Sorry, but I use the Irrigation page often. This is clearly a bug. NOTE: The screen shots were taken well after the watering event.

I think you may have to update what you are calling the “Irrigation Page” in order for the new values to display. In my phone when I go back to the Irrigation Page I have to swipe down from the top to update the display. I am using a Oneplus 8 Pro with Android 11 and Action Launcher.

I was going to suggest the same thing as Alturia. It does seem Rachio doesn’t always update as it should. And yes, that’s a bug, but maybe one we can work around.

Unless I have had the app recently open in my tray, EVERYTIME I open the app, it updates. @garyjnj1, do you close the application from the app tray?

There’s an App Tray?? What OS are we talking about?

Android. I’m on Samsung, but you can swipe up from the bottom and it shows current running apps and you can completely close them from there. Just closing out of the app doesn’t completely close it…

I don’t know if it has an actual name or not…
https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079646?hl=en#:~:text=Close%20one%20app%3A%20Swipe%20up,%2C%20hold%2C%20then%20let%20go.

Thanks. Ah, I’m on Samsung Android too, but you probably have a newer phone. Hitting the 3 vertical bars to the left of the bottom of the screen does it for me [ III < ]. Swiping up from the bottom shows all programs installed on mine.

And yes, swiping a program up from the displayed “tray” does close it, although I hadn’t heard that terminology before.

Anyhow, not questioning you, just trying to learn. I’m losing brain cells to fast to not make the best use of the ones I have left. :wink:

Swipe up is pure Android. You can set the Samsung to do the same (I did that with my S20 Ultra) which gets rid of the bottom navigation buttons. Took a bit to get used to, but I love it now.

Thanks. You are correct. Swiping down updated the Irrigation page and causes it to match the soil moisture page.



How in the world was I supposed to know that? They need a note or something to indicate “Pull down to refresh”). Would be really useful if it auto refreshed when opening the app and when returning to the Irrigation page.

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