# Finally did some tuna testing



## kolbasz (Jun 7, 2017)

Been a long time coming and even though it was brief with 3 cans, it told me with my adjusted output, things aren't horrible.

My sprinklers were set to 1"/h in rachio, dialed it back to .5" and set out 3 tuna cans within the 3 zones.

While I need to make some adjustments, it is not terrible. The one zone needs increased, but the rest are right there, some of the cans we're slightly tilted so it skewed the results slightly, but overall the adjustment in rachio should help considerably.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

That's great, but you want hydrated turf, not hydrated tuna cans. When you say you are making asjustments, is that based at all on how the turf is doing, or just how the tuna cans are doing? :mrgreen: One inch per week is a very rough guideline, not a patented chemical formula. :nod:


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## kolbasz (Jun 7, 2017)

Just looking more at how much water I am putting down. While not a formula, the key is I was half watering which helps noone.

I will still walk the yard on occasion and if needed adjust the schedule, but this shouldn't be often. I always did fairly well in the past with half the water, so as long as my coverage is even, I think I will be in an even better place.

I'm no scientist, so I'll stay away from the chemistry.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

kolbasz said:


> Just looking more at how much water I am putting down. While not a formula, the key is I was half watering which helps noone.
> 
> I will still walk the yard on occasion and if needed adjust the schedule, but this shouldn't be often. I always did fairly well in the past with half the water, so as long as my coverage is even, I think I will be in an even better place.
> 
> I'm no scientist, so I'll stay away from the chemistry.


No worries friend, I'm just still buzzing for being chastized a while back for not measuring PR to the nearest micron. The folks who set an irrigation schedule based solely on some set, precisely measured, exact amount per week instead of just getting it pretty darn close and then walking the yard as you say, aren't really thinking hard enough about what they're doing (in my humble opinion).


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## dfw_pilot (Jan 28, 2017)

Delmarva Keith said:


> That's great, but you want hydrated turf, not hydrated tuna cans.





Delmarva Keith said:


> The folks who set an irrigation schedule based solely on some set, precisely measured, exact amount per week instead of just getting it pretty darn close and then walking the yard as you say, aren't really thinking hard enough about what they're doing (in my humble opinion).


With respect, I think there is some misunderstanding here. Indeed, we are watering turf, not tuna cans, but cans or rain gauges are an easy way to see how much water our system is putting down, right? We have a lot of members comment that they water for 10-15 minutes and are then stunned to find out they should be running that zone for over an hour. So, the _point of the measurement is to get things close_, and then adjust from there.

There are other benefits of knowing how much an irrigation system puts down in a set time. By setting a manual controller to 100% putting down an inch, one can then seasonally adjust from there.

But just "setting it pretty darn close" doesn't work without a valid starting point. No one is suggesting we blinding water an inch a week. But having a "close enough" calibration on our irrigation system is as important as calibrating our sprayers and spreaders. It's just another tool in the box.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

^+1

To further add, the rachio system encourages users to just let it water your lawn based on a "flex schedule". It seems that by magic, the rachio will know your system. While the system works really good it needs proper setup. These include root depth, soil structure and * accurate * precipitation rate. The system default settings are pretty bad in regards to precipitation rates. It is eye opening when you perform an audit and find out it is way wrong.

For example, the op had the system set to 1in/hr, therefore the system tracked and assumed it had one inch, when it actually had half an inch.


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

dfw_pilot said:


> Delmarva Keith said:
> 
> 
> > That's great, but you want hydrated turf, not hydrated tuna cans.
> ...


I think there is a misunderstood about what I was getting at and I should have used actual numbers to illustrate. Calibrating is important, but if you have a margin of error of 10% or even as much as 20% for measurement of PR, you are more than close enough. The outsplash effect of shallow containers everyone seems to use is likely at least in the neighborhood of that margin of error anyway. That's what I meant by close enough. If you think measurement of PR more precisely than that in this context has some significance, then we disagree.

I took the OP to mean that he was adjusting his system to get that elusive exact inch. I just wanted to point out that's a fools errand because the ubiquitous inch is really just a very rough guess about an appropriate amount of water anyway. He then clarified that he walks his lawn to see how it's doing, not just the blind exact inch.

Even if the margin of error was as much as 50%, it would still work out fine if the scheduling adjustments were done based on an observation of the plants. If a guy waters a zone for x minutes believing it's an inch and it's really only a half inch, but three days later sees the first indications of drought stress, that's a clue that 2x minutes is getting closer to what it needs. The guy might come away thinking "wow, sure does seem to need a lot of water," but the turf doesn't care what he's thinking, just what he does

Similar for whiz-bang controllers. They ask about soil type, root zone depth, slope, solarization (shade), etc., etc., and place that data in rough categories to get pretty close. But it still takes a set of eyes on the ground to tweak it for actual conditions which go far beyond what it asks or the level of granularity available in the answers.

We good? :mrgreen:


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## kolbasz (Jun 7, 2017)

Delmarva Keith said:


> We good? :mrgreen:


Of course, I get it. I think sometimes words and messages can br misunderstood.

Ultimately, as noted, the goal was just to learn how much was I was putting down. With 1" per run as the goal, I had to up my run time. Now, given my 3-4-2 head layout, I can try to adjust to even things out. Lower one zone, increase another.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Here I was thinking this thread was going to be a debate on whether yellow fin or albacore was better. :tease:


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## kolbasz (Jun 7, 2017)

Colonel K0rn said:


> Here I was thinking this thread was going to be a debate on whether yellow fin or albacore was better. :tease:


Haha, every day the guy brings me a can I see the pain in his face and tell him I need more, he tells me I'm lucky to get what I get. While he eats it,. He hates it.


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