13 · IrrigationINTERMEDIATE
Irrigation: the five modes
Of everything the app does, irrigation is the biggest, and the only one where a mistake is paid for within hours. You configure it behind the card's ⚙, and it's split into five panels: one per strategy, plus the safety caps that apply to all of them.
First of all: the header
| Field | Range | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Drippers | 1 to 100 | How many drippers you have. At 0 the system doesn't make it up: the liters in the history are left unestimated. |
| L/h per dripper | 0.1 to 20 | Nominal flow rate. Without a flow rate, volume mode simply doesn't water. |
| Total flow | calculated | Drippers × L/h. It's the number the system uses to translate liters into seconds. |
| Chart min/max | 0 to 100 % | It only changes the scale of the moisture chart. Empty = 65/85. |
1 · Manual
- No fields: you open the pump yourself, with the card's WATER button.
- All the safety nets still cover you: duration cap, watchdog and automatic hardware shutoff.
- To drop from an automatic mode down to manual, it asks you to confirm.
2 · Scheduled
| Field | Range | Default | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Program type | one shot / pulses / volume | — | How it delivers the water each time it fires. |
| One shot · duration | 10 to 3600 s | 120 s | A single opening. |
| Pulses · shot duration | 5 to 300 s | 30 s | How long it opens on each pulse. |
| Pulses · pause (soak) | 1 to 120 min | 60 min | How long it waits between pulses so the water spreads. |
| Pulses · maximum | 1 to 50 | 10 | Cap per session. |
| Volume · target liters | 0.1 to 200 L | 12 L | Total to deliver. |
| Volume · max s/shot | 10 to 600 s | 120 s | Cap on each opening. |
| When to water | sync with the light / fixed schedule | sync | With sync, watering hangs off the lamp turning on or off; with a fixed schedule, off the clock. |
| Trigger (sync) | after turning on / before turning off / before turning on | — | Which movement of the light it hooks onto. |
| Offset (sync) | 0 to 480 min | 30 min | How long before or after that event. |
3 · Wet/dry (by soil moisture)
| Field | Range | Default | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| DRY (minimum) | 0 to 100 % | 40 % | When moisture hits this value, the fill starts. |
| WET (target) | 0 to 100 % | 65 % | It waters up to here. |
| Shot duration | 5 to 600 s | 30 s | Each shot of the fill. |
| Pause (soak) | 1 to 120 min | 15 min | Wait before measuring again. |
| Max shots | 1 to 20 | 6 | Cap per calendar day, not per light cycle. |
| Max runtime / volume | 60-7200 s / 1-500 L | 600 s / 50 L | It's there so you don't end up waterlogging the pot. |
4 · Crop steering
- It's the pro mode: the day is split into phases P1 (morning recharge), P2 (maintenance) and P3 (cutoff before the light goes off), plus the night with no watering.
- It has its own section: Crop steering.
5 · Guardian (water quality)
| Field | Default safe range |
|---|---|
| pH | 5.8 to 6.5 |
| EC | 0.8 to 2.2 mS |
| Water temperature | 18 to 24 °C |
- With the block irrigation switch ON, out-of-range water stops automatic irrigation. On OFF, it only warns.
- Two cases block always, wherever the switch is: a sensor that doesn't show up, and a probe whose last reading is already more than five minutes old. There, stopping is the safe thing.
- It needs a water probe (Bluelab). Without a probe, Guardian does nothing.
The caps that apply to every mode
| Cap | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Max duration of an automatic watering | 60 to 7200 s | 600 s |
| Max duration of a manual watering | 60 to 1800 s | 300 s · off by default |
| Liters per session | 1 to 500 L | 50 L |
| Retries if the cloud fails | 0 to 5 | 3 |
| Warning if a watering couldn't run | yes/no | yes |
Do this
Try it with PULSE IRRIGATION NOW or TEST WET/DRY NOW: they save the configuration and run once without changing the active mode.
Avoid this
Don't set the wet/dry minimum close to the target. At 60 → 65 the system waters all day and the root never goes looking for water; the dryback is half the job.
How urgent it is
EssentialDuration and liter caps set before the first automatic watering.
ImportantReal drippers and flow rate.
OptionalGuardian with a water probe.