# Catch Cup Results



## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

Ordered some catch cups from Orbit a while ago and I finally got out this morning and did a test. Weather was perfect with nearly zero wind. There was a ton of consistency around 25 ml's or .1 inch per runtime according to the cups so per orbit I have 81% uniformity. The target per the site was 70% so for a diy design and install I'm pretty thrilled about the uniformity.

I recently converted a drip zone to add a head that currently spins about 270 degrees In the front of the yard. The yard is wider in the front than the back which stretches my distance and h2h coverages but the new head in the middle of the yard solved that. And I always had dry spots along the curve of the sidewalk. One cup had 14ml and the other 49. But by reducing the 270 to 180 I can fix that.

My question is about starting at midnight to end before sunrise and fungus pressure. The test has me putting out .1 inch of water based on my run time for the test. I currently run 6 times as long every 3 days or 2.5 days a week which has me at a sweet spot of 1.5 inches per week. The yard doesn't look stressed at all I might have a little fungus pressure but nothing major I just put down .7#'s per k of a granular Lesco fungicide "T-Storm" which I do once a month. When it heats up I put down an app of propiconazole in the middle of the granular apps which I haven't done yet.

Should I be concerned with starting at midnight to end before sunrise. My only other options would be to run different zones everyday to shorten my run time so I would start at maybe 3am vs. midnight.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It ok to start at midnight.

I think you should do an audit to get at least .25in in the cups. 0.1in is barely anything and too much room for error.


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## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

Thanks @g-man , I will set them out again before the next run. Which should validate if I'm truly putting out half an inch per schedule and also validate that I tweaked the front rotor in the middle to average out the high and low cups from the test. I guess I cracked open the beer to celebrate my uniformity too soon, kinda like the year Arthur Blank did the Dirty Bird at the Super Bowl  .


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## Utk03analyst (Jun 8, 2019)

I went out before my schedule kicked off at midnight. Uniformity is up a bit per Orbit. Each cup was at .4 one was at .3 I need to adjust the arc of one rotor which use to hit the house and fence so I cut it a little short on one side and I haven't shorten the arc on the 270 degree rotor yet one cup was also closer to .6 but was essentially off the charts. I will have to lower the gpm's on the nozzle since the cups on the side of the rotor that it will be hitting more are already at .4. That puts me currently at 1.0 inch per week based on last nights test. @g-man great call out on running the test longer. I would have been good on uniformity but wrong on my initial assumptions on how much water I put down. I think the water bill agrees with 1.0. It's lower than it was same time last year but I'm not trying to recover from all of the trenching plus it seems like the temps have been a little milder this year.

I also only fertilized twice this spring and cut it off first of April last year I went to nearly June and my yard went into heat stress quicker than the neighbors. I believe that backing off the N input's early hurt the deep dark green but helped the overall health of the plant and reduced the necessary water inputs. I hit it with a 6% Lesco foilar app of iron monthly and recently bought a Lesco humic acid product which I plan to start putting down monthly with the iron, gives me a punch of color with a hint of N.

Next will be to test the backyard and side strips tweak as needed and then when it really starts cooking in August, September I may have to increase to around 1.5 inches per week.


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