varying the frequency rather than the duration (for drought resistance)
Implemented
I'm only recently looking into these things and don't claim to be an expert, but most of what I can find online seems to suggest the frequency of watering should be more variable than the duration. The idea is that that the time to saturate the soil doesn't really vary that much and (at least in California) we should always aim for a deep watering in order to encourage deep roots and drought tolerance. It may be necessary to water more often when conditions require, but each watering should provide the full amount necessary to saturate the root zone. It would be great if there was a mode that automatically varied the frequency of watering rather than the duration.
-
Official comment
This feature is now partially (grass type breakdown) implemented on current beta update (>920): https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/articles/230333608
Comment actions -
Hi Dwayne.
Thank you for the suggestion.
We have a similar feature (currently in beta), called "Minimum Watering Time" that will not water if calculated amount is less than xx minutes (user selectable amount). The watering quantity will be 'rolled over' to the next watering cycle, which in effect is what you propose?Example: Watering is at or below 3min.
Monday 3min
Tue 3min
Wed 3min
Thu 3min
Fri 3min
If rollover rules enabled, schedule will be:
Monday 0min
Tue 6min (3minutes + 3 minutes rollover from Monday)
Wed 0min
Thu 6min (3minutes + 3 minutes rollover from Wed)
Fri 0min
-
Andrei, I have the same request as Dwayne.
This is especially true for drip-line zones for trees, where you want to water not frequently but deep (for example, 2 hours once a week) and where water needs are typically measured by gallons per week, not inches per day.
You would need to implement "Minimum Watering Time" and "Field Capacity" setting for zones to make it usable.
Even for lawn, 3 min"Minimum Watering Time" may be sufficient for spray zones (high GPM per foot) but for regular rotary it should be at least double that.
-
Andrei, the example you give is if a zone is scheduled for every day(?), but how would it work if you have say a rotary nozzle sprinklers scheduled for every 3 days (ie Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, etc) normally running for 35 minutes, with a minimum of 15 minutes? If the system predicts that on Monday it will only need 10minutes of watering (which is below the 15 minute minimum), will it wait until Thursday to water again (which will then include the 15min rollover from Monday)? Waiting another 3 days could be detrimental. It would almost be better if it skipped Monday (because of the minimum watering amount) and then reevaluate the schedule the following day. If the next day the predicted value is higher than the minimum, then it would run the zone (adding in the rollover amount)...
Or am I not understanding how the minimum watering time works?
Thanks!
-
I asked for this as well in the old forum/help pages.
I would like to have the time roll over until the full run time for the zone is met - and then it would water - not just on the next scheduled day.
If that isn't available, then I would like the ability to set the minimum run time by zone - not for the whole system.
To recap what I would like: I want to supply 1" of water to my lawn each and every time it waters. I would like the rainmachine to calculate the days needed between watering based on season, weather, etc...so that as an example in the winter it would almost never water the lawn, in the early spring it might water 1 time each month, late spring/early summer it might water every couple of weeks, and finally in the heat of the summer, or during a heat wave, it would water 1-2 times a week.
This is better than having to adjust the schedule manually as the season moves along. The rainmachine should be able to do this.
-
@Andrei
Following up, I set up a zone for an avocado tree where the water needs to drip slowly for about half an hour to saturate the soil (then not water again for another 3 days), but I also have zones set up for my lawn where 10 minutes is enough every other day. Because there is no per-zone setting for minimum run time, I am not able to use your suggestion of setting 10 minutes daily and a minimum watering time of 30 minutes ... because the 30 minute minimum (intended to benefit the tree) would prevent the lawn from being watered properly.
For now I have just turned off the weather adjustment on the zone corresponding to the tree, watering it for 30 minutes once every three days, but I think this can result in over-watering when the weather is cool or wet, increasing the risk for root rot.
Per zone minimums would be ideal.
-
I agree that we need the ability to set the minimum watering time on a per-zone or even per-program basis.
But it also needs to adjust the frequency based on that. So if it's set to every three days and one day it determines (by minimum watering time) that watering isn't necessary, then it tries to water the next day, not the next scheduled day. For example, if it's set to every three days and it waters normally on Monday, then Thursday rolls around and it doesn't water because of minimum time, then it tries again Friday, once again based on minimum watering time. It then resets the day timer so that the next time it would try watering again would be Monday (not Sunday).
-
Yet another request for this feature. I live in the desert, and the recommendation is to water to "full field capacity" to the depth of plant roots (e.g. deeper for trees), and then to wait until it gets to 1/2 field capacity before watering again. So watering should always be for the same duration for a given zone, but the duration will vary a great deal depending mostly on the weather but also on the type of plant - for instance, some desert plants are very active in the spring but then go dormant in the summer. I know you guys want to keep things simple for the average homeowner, but it would be nice to have an "advanced mode" with more control over the watering algorithm, for people that want to tune watering for their specific situation.
-
Another +1 here.
To encourage robust root growth, plants should always be watered when dry and until properly wet. This never means watering on a fixed schedule. It means watering on a schedule based on the time it takes for the soil to become dry. I may need to water a particular plant every day in the heat of the summer, but the same plant might suffer root rot if kept constantly wet through daily watering in cooler weather, even if the amount of water received per day is small.
What "wet" and "dry" are, of course, varies by soil and plant type, so this absolutely needs to be per-zone, not a global setting. Make this global setting per-zone, and we'd have just about have everything needed to implement proper weather-based scheduling. (What's the hold up, again?)
-
Yet another +1 from me as well. I was rather surprised there wasn't simply a 'Suggested' option when setting a program's frequency. And I'm with every one else that it needs to take each zone's watering needs into consideration. I'm fine creating different programs for the different vegetation types but I shouldn't have to create a different program for each zone of my lawn just because one part of my lawn can go another day or two between waterings because it gets more shade.
-
On our beta implementation we have an extra option on programs, beside the actual frequency selection called "adaptive frequency".
This option makes RainMachine, water with *at least* the selected frequency but never less that 100% of the zone duration. If computed duration is less than 100% then the watering requirements are carried over to the next cycle.
So this is a "variable frequency fixed duration" (eg: a every 2 days frequency can actually skip 3 days).
Before releasing the beta we'd like more feedback on this feature, and if our current implementation satisfies most of the use cases presented here.
-
I would say this would work providing that the carry over to the next cycle can occur the next day if required.
The issue I see is that the *at least* part doesn't have a definition - is this the days between cycles that would occur during the hottest longest days of summer? If so and the Rainmachine adjusts the time (days) between runs to vary this then I believe it would work.
Example: For a lawn I might water every 5 days for 42 minutes in the heat of the summer - but as summer goes by and fall approaches I would water every 6 days, then a few weeks later every 7 days continuing to spread out the days until winter when it might never water or only water once a month. In the spring this would obviously reverse, slowly decreasing the days between watering until it met the 5 day frequency duration.
-
Nicholas, how do we join the beta program (play store app and firmware)? And is there a way to exit the beta program to go back to the official stable firmware release at anypoint?
I'd love to have the beta release and check out the adaptive frequency since summer will be ending soon (here in San Diego, CA) and would prefer to perform full 100% waterings but have the delay between cycles increase into fall/winter.
Thanks!
-
What does "zone duration" mean in the context of this feature?
For this to work, we need a minimum watering duration per-zone (possibly per-zone-per-program) in addition to the target watering duration currently set in a program for each zone. For instance, I might set a particular zone to have a minimum duration of 4 minutes, but create a program that runs daily, set to water the zone for only 1 minute. This would mean that under 100% watering conditions, the program would actually activate the zone once every 4 days for 4 minutes (even though it triggers daily). If the weather dictated only 80% watering for the zone (or 48 seconds per day), then the zone would trigger every 5 days instead, still watering for 4 minutes.
If this feature relies on RaimMachine's suggested watering durations, it won't work. I have my RainMachine watering a large variety of potted plants on a drip system (and doing quite well at it), but the suggested watering durations are completely wrong (about 20x too long), and there's no obvious way to fix this. (Ultimately, even if I can figure out how to set values such as "field capacity" appropriately to handle potted plants, watering duration depends partly on a combination of drip emitter flow rate *and* pot size, and RainMachine doesn't have any way to configure this. If I used only large pots on low flow emitters, the suggested values might work, but I need to use high flow emitters on large pots so I can use the low flow emitters on smaller ones, resulting in watering durations on the order of 5 minutes per zone.)
-
Thanks for good news Nicholas.
It's a good direction but there are some issues with your proposed solution.
You are saying "water with *at least* the selected frequency but never less that 100% of the zone duration. If computed duration is less than 100% then the watering requirements are carried over to the next cycle."
If I understand your logic correctly, this would work only when it is a daily program or it is one zone per program because each zone will end up in it's own 'adaptive' schedule.
But let's step back and set our goal: we want only to deep irrigate a zone (to promote deep roots) and only when zone's field capacity is close to be depleted.
Short of having a physical moisture sensor, one need to estimate per zone: field capacity (soil type, plant type, etc) and inch-per-hour irrigation rate to set an optimal zone's water time.
Ideally I would want to 'set-and-forget' one daily program for all of my zones and let RainMachine to figure out which zones need to be run that day.
To achieve that, you can implement per zone option something like: "if a zone field capacity depleted less than XX%, skip to next day".
Take a look a competitor's implementation:
http://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010541708-Flexible-Daily-Schedules-FAQ
And I agree with Alfred; we need a better understanding of what exact data goes into field capacity calculation, like exact values that is coming from each weather forecast (because many times parser is wrong).
We also need an ability to manually adjust how depleted is a field capacity if there is an error in RainMachine calculations.
Here is an example:
-
Thanks for comments, we appreciate the feedback received.
> Monty
> The issue I see is that the *at least* part doesn't have a definition - is this the days between cycles that would
> occur during the hottest longest days of summer? If so and the
> Rainmachine adjusts the time (days) between runs to vary this then I believe it would work.Currently, the base frequency it's always respected, if you set every 5 days and on, let's say day 10 doesn't need to water, it will carry over to day 15. Basically it won't change the base frequency.
-
D Ward
how do we join the beta program (play store app and firmware)?
And is there a way to exit the beta program to go back to the official stable firmware release at anypoint?To join the beta program, you just need to select Beta Updates from Settings->System Settings. To exit beta updates deselect the option, but this won't "uninstall" the beta. It will just stop beta updates. Once a *new* stable version is released this will update/overwrite the beta installed.
-
Alfred Barnat
What does "zone duration" mean in the context of this feature?The duration set for each zone in that particular program.
For this to work, we need a minimum watering duration per-zone (possibly per-zone-per-program) in addition to the target
watering duration currently set in a program for each zone. For instance, I might set a particular zone to have a minimum
duration of 4 minutes, but create a program that runs daily, set to water the zone for only 1 minute. This would mean that under
100% watering conditions, the program would actually activate the zone once every 4 days for 4 minutes (even though it triggers daily).
If the weather dictated only 80% watering for the zone
(or 48 seconds per day), then the zone would trigger every 5 days instead, still watering for 4 minutes.Yes, the next release will have zone minimum watering duration per zone and we're adding per zone per program minimum watering duration for future development.
But this will work independently of whatever "adaptive frequency" is set or not in the program. This setting enforces carry-over even if minimum duration is met but duration are less than 100%.
If this feature relies on RaimMachine's suggested watering durations, it won't work. I have my RainMachine watering a large
variety of potted plants on a drip system (and doing quite well at it), but the suggested watering durations are completely
wrong (about 20x too long), and there's no obvious way to fix this. (Ultimately, even if I can figure out how to set values
such as "field capacity" appropriately to handle potted plants, watering duration depends partly on a combination of drip
emitter flow rate *and* pot size, and RainMachine doesn't have any way to configure this. If I used only large pots on low
flow emitters, the suggested values might work, but I need to use high flow emitters on large pots so I can use the low
flow emitters on smaller ones, resulting in watering durations on the order of 5 minutes per zone.)Duration is mostly governed by sprinkler head precipitation rate and application efficiency (this has the biggest impact), then exposure and vegetation type. You can set *custom* values for all these and it's recommended to do so.
-
al fox
You are saying "water with *at least* the selected frequency but never less that 100% of the zone duration. If computed duration is less than 100% then the watering requirements are carried over to the next cycle."
If I understand your logic correctly, this would work only when it is a daily program or it is one zone per program because each zone will end up in it's own 'adaptive' schedule.In current implementation each zone will end in it's own adaptive frequency (respecting base frequency). Usually people tend to group similar zones in same program and in most cases all zones will water in the same day. If zones are very different, then indeed some might water at next run and some might not.
But let's step back and set our goal: we want only to deep irrigate a zone (to promote deep roots) and only when zone's field capacity is close to be depleted.
Short of having a physical moisture sensor, one need to estimate per zone: field capacity (soil type, plant type, etc) and inch-per-hour irrigation rate to set an optimal zone's water time.
Ideally I would want to 'set-and-forget' one daily program for all of my zones and let RainMachine to figure out which zones need to be run that day.
To achieve that, you can implement per zone option something like: "if a zone field capacity depleted less than XX%, skip to next day".
Take a look a competitor's implementation:
http://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010541708-Flexible-Daily-Schedules-FAQ
And I agree with Alfred; we need a better understanding of what exact data goes into field capacity calculation, like exact values that is coming from each weather forecast (because many times parser is wrong).For RainMachine FieldCapacity is as follows:
(fc - pw) * rd * ad
fc - soil field capacity constant as percentage depending on soil type (like 0.30 for Clay Loam)
pw - permanent wilting point as percentage usually 0.03
rd - root depth depending on plant type (203mm for grass)
ad - allowed depletion constant as percentage based on plant type (0.40 for grass)The field capacity (FC) specify the limits for rain(+) and evapotranspiration ET (-). We can track how much the ET decreases in FC and trigger the irrigation. Although we use FC we simplify for users this handling. Instead of asking user to setup a perfect FC (which is not easy) we ask users to enter for zone duration a value that matches how much they water usually in a "normal summer day". The data in RainMachine knows the yearly ET values based on a 30 years of moving averages and an *summer average* so actually what users setup is the duration in which the ET is being replenished in their soil for each zone. This is for *custom* duration set by users.
For "suggested duration* we compute this duration based on soil/plant/sprinkler properties and the rest is similar to *custom* duration. Problem is that "suggested duration" will not be perfect and we want to keep *custom* duration in this "adaptive mode".
We also need an ability to manually adjust how depleted is a field capacity if there is an error in RainMachine calculations.
Yes this will be available to set in the next release
-
"Currently, the base frequency it's always respected, if you set every 5 days and on, let's say day 10 doesn't need to water, it will carry over to day 15. Basically it won't change the base frequency."
This would be a problem for my needs. I need something that extends the time between watering incrementally - I can already skip an entire cycle, which is what this would do if the minimum time isn't met. This would be OK, and just OK, if the duration of a zone had 1 day 'base frequency'.
I am already doing this on some of my shorter run drip zones - I have set the minimum run time to the exact run time of the zone, and when the rainmachine sees less water needed it skips an entire cycle...
-
"This will only be possible, as you say with minimum watering duration per zone set in conjunction with zone program duration on a daily program."
Nicholas, can you please confirm that such daily program would be able to handle less-frequent irrigation scenarios?
For example, I drip irrigate my trees once a week for 2 hours and I manually adjust to a longer period it if we get rain during that week.
Would we be able to set a "daily" program with a large enough FC to equate to a weekly frequency and would RMachine rain/ET logic be able to handle it?
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
32 comments