Confused about setups

post by nathgreco on Mar 17, 2025

Hi, I’m in Adelaide Australia with 4 vegetable beds and the biggest 2 are 1.2 m square with popups at one end of each. What would be the best way to set this up? I also have another run of fruit, 9 fruit trees with dripper line. Is there someone able to help even if it's in message? This just seems a little more complicated than I’d thought. I’m in the driest state of the driest country, so I’d like to be as efficient as possible.
Thank you,
Nathan

post by JBTexas on Mar 18, 2025

I’m going to guess there’s public data in your area (an agriculture service) that can tell you what your specific location has for dirt, for rainfall, for temperatures, etc. You can identify what kind of slope, shade, etc. you have. Your system has how many zones? How many heads in each zone whose output can tell us how much water you can deliver (in some interval of time) to that zone? It would be nice if there’s a locally available compatible weather station that can tell Rachio how much it rained. Most of these things, including how much water you’re going to need (say, per week, natural or irrigation). I recommend you start with why you bought the Rachio - flex daily scheduling - to do your irrigation with minimal stress to your greenery and you - but there is a learning curve. This forum will provide answers to just about anything you don’t understand, and everyone has an opinion here on growing grass. There are more than a few running predominantly drip irrigation installations.

Begin at the beginning and go on 'til you come to the end, then stop.
(the King), Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

post by nathgreco on Mar 18, 2025

Hi, thank you for your response. We have had little rainfall since the middle of last year, it's generally warm and dry with the odd week over 100°F here and there. The garden beds have one each of the hunter 4’ variable nozzle 1.2m with 4 on the run, with the fruit trees having a drip line with 2L per hour with about a total of 10-12L per tree.

The first time I used the flex, it ran for 2 hours on the veggies where I'd usually only run for half an hour max with successful crops in the past.

post by JBTexas on Mar 22, 2025

That may be because Rachio has no idea how much moisture is in your soil profile, and its “safe” option is to assume it’s empty, so it will apply water until it thinks it’s full. From that point forward, it will consider evaporation, transpiration, temperature, rain, and your settings to decide when to water again. Use care to determine how deep your profile needs to be, and the flow rate of your irrigation in each zone. And as a default, Rachio usually calls for water only when available water in your soil profile drops to 50% (in Rachio-speak, the allowed depletion), or near 0% Soil Moisture.

post by nathgreco on Mar 22, 2025

Makes sense, thank you for your help.