Zone Setting - Help

Hello, I’m using the Smart Setting feature and for whatever the reason my ‘Front Left’ zone seems to get skipped a lot yet needs the most watering out of any of my zones. For example, my ‘Front Bushes’ zone was watered today but my ‘Front Left’ zone was skipped. I’ve increased time for the zone but I think it must be something else that needs to be adjusted so it’s not skipped as much. Attached are pictures of my ‘Front Left’ settings, ‘Front Bush’ settings and the Flex Schedule watering from this morning which shows how the ‘Front Left’ was skipped. Thanks in advance for your help.

Can you provide screen shots of the moisture level for your Front Left zone?

To do that go to zones, select Front Left, select soil moisture. You may need to select more information and you will then see something like the screen below.

Terminology-wise, we consider “skipped” to mean that a scheduled watering time has not occurred, usually due to rain, wind, freeze or other reason. You’re using a Flex Daily schedule, which can water each zone differently, depending on conditions and properties.

Please try not to change the watering times directly. It fouls up the schedule logic can make it difficult to fine tune. And if anything, increasing time will make a zone get watered less often.

I notice your Front Shrubs zone has different soil than your Front Left zone. Is that because you’ve added soil around the shrubs? And you have both crops selected as Warm Season Grass, yet you call the zone shrubs? Shrubs usually have deeper roots and mulch which can require different watering.

As Alturia mentions, posting the chart of soil moisture for each zone will help us understand your situation. Screen shots of the Advanced properties for the zones can help as well. BTW, where are you located?

Thanks David. See pictures

I’m located in ft worth TX. Let me know if you want any more charts. The attached charts are for the zone in question

R raisely, thanks for the great info. The front bushes soil has a bit more organic matter so I called it a loam. That zone also waters portions of my front lawn which is more clay like. The zone in question is clay w some silty material. Beyond six inches it’s all clay

Thanks Dan. I assume the Soil Moisture screen print is from the Front Left zone. I noticed that the schedule ran on 5/10 and it shows .72" of water. That seems like quite high when you say the zone runs for 16 minutes. Since your question is why is the Front Shrubs zone running more often than the Front Left zone can you provide the Soil Moisture table for the Front Shrubs zone? And can you provide a screen shop of the advanced settings for both zones?

Richard may have some insight also.

Also, what are your advanced settings for these zones? Can you post a screenshot of each of those?

You call the one “front shrubs”, but have it set to warm season grass. Is it pulling double duty? If so, you are correct in setting the most needy, in this case grass, but I’d say you probably need to leave the soil type the same as what the grass area is.

The soil type difference is going to make a big difference in the way it waters due to the AW of those soils.

This month, the FRET value for the Ft. Worth area is about 1.3". Your total Crop Evapotranspiration values for the week are 0.95". That would make a Crop Coefficient of about 0.73. Warm Season grass defaults to 65%; I use 85% for Centipede grass. So that sounds reasonable.

The Moisture chart you show indicates the system watered the zone with 0.27" of water on 5/5, which is a reasonable figure. And then it plans to water again on 5/10, but with 0.72" of water. That is very high, and usually watering amounts are very close or the same each time. If anything, I’d expect it to be less due to the forecast 0.4" of rain on 5/9 and 5/10. Perhaps some setting was changed that caused this (like soil type or root depth)?

Anyhow, it’s planning on putting a total of 0.72" + 0.27" irrigation and 0.04" of rain for a total of 1.03" of water on the zone while it anticipates the zone needing 0.95" (above). That all sounds reasonable. And of course it’s watering, on average, 2 days a week, again that sounds fine. But I suspect a change was made recently (after 5/5) that changed the total to be applied on 5/10, and we should investigate that.

As tmcgahey says, posting the Advanced settings for this and the other zone you’re comparing watering frequency to will help.