# Figuring out rainbird 5000



## BassBoss (Sep 1, 2018)

I'm just looking for a good place to start, and you guys are pros here.

I Just got 20 heads replaced with birds and was wondering what others were doing. My installer put the 2.5 nozzles in most of my heads. I haven't done the tuna can thingy yet. What nozzles are you guys running?I don't know what my pressure is but seems pretty good. I have 5-7 heads per zone with 4 rotor zones and 2 pop up zones and 3 drip zones.

We have been going thru a brutal heat wave here in eastern NC. I ran the sprinklers 45 min in my main(rotors) zones Friday morning but noticed Saturday afternoon some areas were looking crisp. I ran them again 45 min this morning and same areas looking crisp again. I watched the sprinklers so I know the area got good coverage. I don't know if I should be going longer than 45 min in each zone and/or go to a higher nozzle number. Thanks for any input y'all give me.


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## BassBoss (Sep 1, 2018)

I posted in soil fertility as well. Looking to soften my soil to get good root depth. Chime in if you can. Thx.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

You need to test your system. They call it distribution uniformity or DU and precipitation rate or pr.

I'd set catch cups in each zone in turn, including any noticeable dry areas and run it for 30 minutes. Measure what's in each cup. For any outliers, your DU isn't good. Figure out why and fix it. Your lowest amount (having fixed any large outliers) x 2 is your pr in inches per hour. There are other ways to do it with an average and a percentage based on DU but skip the statistical analysis and just figure if they're all pretty close, take the lowest one, multiply by 2 and that's your pr.

Now you need to match pr times run time to local ETo - in other words put down what gets used up. You can get ETo from your cooperative extension office or usually their university website. Call and they can set you straight. Try to keep soil water content above 40%. Where I am, ETo runs around 0.2" to 0.25" per day and soil capacity to 50% water content is roughly double that at 0.5". So in full sun areas I need to apply around just shy of 0.5" every other day or it gets very crispy. Might seem like a lot of water but that's what it takes.

If a pro designed and set up your system, you likely shouldn't mess with the nozzles unless you've identified a problem in DU that needs to be addressed.


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## Ballistic (Mar 19, 2018)

There's a lot of varieties in each lawn sprinkler setup, Like are some doing 360 degree? Then those would need to be double of what one that's going 180 degree. I'm a cool season guy so im not sure on your grass, but you could try breaking up your watering to allow for the soil to soak and having 2 cycles a day or maybe another cycle before its too hot to cool the grass down.


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