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How to Properly Program Your Irrigation Clock
Proper Clock / Controller Management.
Now that we know what the roots require to grow, we need to find out how to run our irrigation systems to provide the proper moisture levels. The most important piece of your irrigation system is the clock or controller. If you have an old system it is very important to think about replacing your controller. If your system is very old then you may want to replace the heads and valve too. Or you may want to simply replace the whole thing. Ask a few different landscape or irrigation contractors for an assessment of your system to see if you need upgrades or replacement. Most systems have a life of about fifteen years.
Many people set the time on their controller in the spring and then walk away for the rest of the season. I call this the RONCO effect. 'Set It and Forget It!' This is wrong for irrigation. Nature changes during the seasons. So should we! I tell people to change their irrigation cycles a minimum of three times a season. Here and in most parts of the country there is a spring wet period followed by a hot summer period that may have thunderstorms or may be very dry as with our region. Then there is a fall period that is cooler and in some ares wetter too. Can you see a trend? In our area the spring can be very wet. In fact you may be able to start your system and then not run it for weeks. Most of the time you will want to maintain moisture levels to allow the grass and larger plants to come out of dormancy before the hot dry summer cycle begins. A system should also be checked once a month to ensure it is working properly. We will look at this more in step three.
Irrigation controllers have reached a level of computer sophistication that allows user to design many different management programs for maintaining soil moisture. For our discussion we will focus on only a few.
Cycle and Soak method of watering - This is when you run a zone for two or more short periods instead of a long continuous cycle.
Seasonal Adjust feature on you controller - This is a feature on most computer irrigation controllers that allows you to keep the same schedule and reduce the overall amount of water being applied by a percentage. The Rainbird company has developed a wonderful set of on-line tutorials to help you learn how to use your Rainbird controller. http:/www.rainbird.com
IRRIGATION ZONE - Any section or portion of a irrigation system that runs at any one time.
Irrigation times equal water penetration.
Why cycle and soak? The decision to use a cycle and soak method is determined by the type soil you have in your yard and how dry the soil is a the start of a watering cycle. Runoff of water from the surface of the soil should be avoided. If your soil can only absorb a curtain amount of water at a time then you may have water running off onto sidewalks or down the drain if your system is applying water faster than the soil can absorb it. Then switch to cycle and soak. Run your zone for ten minutes. the run it again for fifteen more in the same evening. This allows the soil to get charged with a little water so it will be able to absorb more later. This method is crucial for those zones where 30 or even 45 minutes of watering time are needed.
Seasonal adjust is a good feature because it allows you to change the amount of water without having to change all the times and possibly make a mistake with the controller. Use this feature sparingly. It would be better to keep the amount of water per cycle the same and lengthen the time between watering cycles.
The soil will not change so the amount of water applied should not change. Change the duration between watering to react to the climate.
Remember, your soils profile and its texture (whether it's course or fine) will not change so the amount of water that can be applied at any one time will also not change. How will you know how much water your soil can handle? That question can only be answered by setting watering times, running the system, and than physically checking the moisture levels at different soil depths. This can be done by digging a hole and feeling the soil, or using a soil probe. Using a shovel at first will help determine how deep your root zone is. There is no use in watering down a foot and a half if your root zone is only eight inches deep.
The point is that regular investigation is required to know how your soils and roots are reacting to the watering times and schedules. Don't 'Set It and Forget It!'
University research shows that up to seventy five percent of irrigation water can be lost to evaporation when running the system during hot, windy, daytime cycles. That's right 75%! ALWAYS WATER AT NIGHT. If your system is too large to run all the zones in one evening then split it into different nights and keep trying to get those roots to grow deeper.
Researchers use complex charts like the Irrigation Monograph below to determine evaporation rates for irrigation systems. We will avoid long academic discussions of how to use these graphs. We will look at how they show the water losses by watering in the day time as apposed to the night time. Using the Nomograph below we can determine that with our low humidity levels, and high winds that are common in the summer the amount of water losses during the day are close to 20%. However, running the irrigation at night with a reduction of wind speeds and temperatures, those losses are reduced to UNDER 5%.
That becomes more significant when we look at the amount of water in gallons that are used when running a system for one day or cycle.
Lets look at an average irrigation system.
IRRIGATION SYSTEM - 50 spray heads using 2 ‘gallons per minute’ (GPM).
50 x 2 GPM = 100 GPM total system usage (in gallons).
The system runs once a day for 20 minutes per zone
100 GPM x 20 minutes per day = 2000 gallons per day.
The system runs a total of 5 months during the Summer season.
2000 gallons per day x 150 days per season = 300,000 gallons per season.
WITH 20% OF IRRIGATION LOSSED TO EVAPORATION WHEN WATERING IN THE DAY THAT EQUALS 60,000 GALLONS OF WATER LOSSED FROM OUR AQUIFER PER SYSTEM PER YEAR!
WRAP YOUR MIND AROUND THIS!
A swimming pool that measures 30 ft. wide by 50 ft. long with an average depth of 5 feet holds about 56,000 gallons of water.
A small landscape can loose enough water to fill a swimming pool. Its important to relate loses of water to items in every day life so we can be more aware of how careful we need to be with irrigation management.
The first five to ten minutes of an irrigation cycle can be stolen from the soil as the water covers and saturates the leaf blades and thatch layer. So if your watering for ten minutes your roots are getting little or no water.
It’s important to mention that these figures are not meant to make anyone feel bad or to expose them as part of the problem. Everyone wants to do the right thing. Yet many of us do not know where to start. The first way to start being more responsible is to be more aware. It’s important to equate these facts and figures to items that the average person can understand.
For more information and the complete set of irrigation 'how to' guides, got to: http://www.ecolandscapegroup.com
CONCLUSION - The irrigation controller is a tool to manipulate soil moisture levels in soil to grow deep roots.
About the Author
SYNOPSIS:Over 20 years diversified experience in multiple facets of the landscape industry emphasizing design and construction. We educate and demonstrate that sustainable landscaping can be beautiful by combining proven techniques with innovative concepts to create award winning landscapes that require less energy and natural resources to build and maintain.
Two (of many) Rainbird T40 rotating pop-ups will not rotate. Why?
Two of my Rainbird T40 (2.0) pop-ups do not rotate any longer. Water pressure is fine as others in zone work great. Both spray in the correct arc and with GPM as per specification; As a second question: Several scattered smaller garden pop-ups do not recede into their housing once their zone completes. Housing springs to be replaced?
When we have a similar problem, most times it's sand in the mechanism. On the housing springs, try replacing just one to see if that's the problem.
Good Luck!
Posts Tagged ‘Zoli Teglas’
The first question was easy: Why him? I’d just sat down with guitarist Fletcher Dragge and singer Zoli Teglas.
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