Hello all, I have had Rachio for years on a flex daily schedule as needed. This year my lawn is all yellow. I live in NJ where it’s been 90 degrees daily and when I look at the zones, they are all at 0-2% soil moisture. The allowed depletion for each zone is 50%. Some of these zones have been below…

When you see soil moisture in Rachio, it’s a bit misleading. It isn’t ACTUAL soil moisture levels. That 0-110% scale is actually from whatever AD is set to (in your case 50%), to 100%. If you need to pump up the watering to get through this crazy heat wave, you can either empty the zone in the moi…

Thank you so much for that. 1 more question regarding soil. I have pure Slate everywhere. What kind of spill should I select for my zones?

Well, if you have grass, you must not have PURE slate. Don’t think grass grows well in rock. :nerd_face: Have you done the Web Soil Survey to find out what type of soil your area has? If you want to DM me your address, I can help you out with that.

DM sent. Thank you. It’s soil on very top but slate below.

I DM’d this user and provided the following info which would help. We both live in NJ. Two things. The crop coefficient should be higher, I’m currently set at 84%. This makes the system water more frequently. Rachio recently rolled out dynamic crop coefficient so every month this auto adjusts. This…

I do use the auto soak cycle. Should I change it to manual? Also what schedule do you use? I am on flex daily so it allows for the Rachio algorithm and weather updates to change. Thank you,

I had to do manual cycle and soak because auto is based on if you have clay or higher soils and slopes. My back yard is flat, so it won’t auto cycle and soak. Also we don’t have clay, but just very compacted soil where the water penetrates at a slower rate. Because of this I had to do manual cycle …

You can “force” an automatic soak by selecting one of the slope settings such as moderate slope or steep slope.

I was getting strange and inconsistent soakings, so I just went with manual. I don’t think that there is anything to be gained by auto soaking, but in my experience, there’s more to be lost

I agree, worst year for me to move to Rachio I think. It simply doesn’t seem able to keep up with the current weather conditions. I’ve had to add many extra waterings. I have a detailed map, placement of heads, type of heads (with flow rate info), soil type, etc, etc. frustrating for sure.

Home | Support | Status Page

Rachio Community

WTH is going on?

Getting Started

Cassy0110 September 6, 2022, 3:41am 17

Set a higher frequency