Technical information

www.digcorp.com 1.800.322.9146
A ne-textured soil is referred to as clay soil. Sandy soil
is a coarse-textured soil. Numerous soil properes are
inuenced by texture, including drainage, water-holding
capacity, aeraon, suscepbility to erosion and organic
maer content.
The soil texture determines the rate at which water drains
through saturated soil. Water moves more freely through
sandy soils than it does through clay soils. Once eld
capacity is reached, soil texture also inuences how much
water is available to the plants. Clay soils have a greater
water-holding capacity than sandy soils. In addion, well-
drained soils typically have good soil aeraon meaning
that the soil contains air that is similar to atmospheric air,
which is conducive to healthy root growth, and thus, to
healthy plants.
How to Determine Soil Texture and Type
Sandy soil: Feels griy and if formed into a ball when
moist, falls apart easily.
Loamy soil: Feels somewhat griy, retains water easily
and is easy to work with it. It has relavely even amounts
of sand, silt, and clay. If formed into a ball when moist,
will hold its shape, yet sll will break apart easily when
squeezed.
Clay soil: Forms large, hard clods, and cracks form on
the surface. Clay soils feel scky and are bendable when
moist. A ribbon can be formed when moist by pinching
soil between ngers and thumb. A longer ribbon formed
before it breaks indicates a higher amount of clay.
About the LEIT RC2ET Environment Features
(LEIT-2ET only)
The ENVIRONMENT menu is used to acvate and set
the ET feature, adjust budgets, and set wind and rain
gauge sensors. The ET MONITOR screens are used to
input important site informaon that are partly based on
exisng factors on each zone, which is then downloaded
to the LEIT-2ET controller. With the ET data received from
the weather staon the LEIT-2ET controller calculates
the hourly and daily local microclimate and adjusts or
overrides the daily scheduled irrigaon program.
ET Eding can be used to edit ET sengs. The Budget
feature is used to reect seasonal changes by adjusng
each month’s irrigaon schedule by percentages from
10% to 200%. The Rain Gauge seng is used to select
rainfall amounts from 1/8” to 1” (3 mm to 25 mm). This
data, coupled with informaon provided by the weather
staon, will adjust or override the irrigaon program.
Wind Speed informaon provided by the weather staon
overrides irrigaon when wind speeds ranging from 8 to
25 MPH (12.9- 40 Km/h) are reached.
How DIG’s Weather-Based System Works
When the ET feature is acvated on the LEIT RC2ET
handset, the weather staon transmits hourly and
daily ET informaon to the LEIT-2ET controller. The
informaon transmied includes temperature, wind
speed, humidity, radiaon, rainfall, and hourly ETo values.
Operang the LEIT RC2ET remote control handset,
the user adds addional detailed informaon on each
site zone that includes soil type, plant category, plant
density, percentage of slope, irrigaon method, irrigaon
eciency with ow rates and spacing. This informaon
is uploaded to the LEIT-2ET controller, which uses it to
determine the plants water loss and the total irrigaon
rate per day needed. With this informaon along with
other factors, including depth of irrigaon, allowable
depleon and basic intake rate, the LEIT-2ET controller
calculates system or zone run me with number of cycles
per day. This calculated run me replaces or overrides
the program duraon that the user set originally. The
controller performs the daily calculaons needed at
midnight to override or adjust the scheduled irrigaon
program specically for each zone, to compensate for
evapotranspiraon (ET).
Using the ET MONITOR feature in the ENVIRONMENT
screen, the user can enter detailed site informaon for
each zone (valve #) and download this informaon to the
LEIT-2ET controller. The controller uses the informaon
received from the handset and the weather staon to
adjust the daily irrigaon schedule. The result can be
reviewed in the REPORT MENU, CURRENT STATUS and
HISTORY menus. The controller can receive informaon
from more then one weather staon in the area, if
available.
Steps used to congure each zone’s sengs by
condions when acvang ET:
Step 1: Select plants stage of life (example: Mature)
Step 2: Select soil type (example: Clay)
Step 3: Select plant category (example: Mix planng)
Step 4: Select plant density factor (Kd)
(example: 50-70%)
Step 5: Select microclimate type factor (Kmc)
(example: Open space)
Step 6: Select percentage of slope (example: 0 to 4%)
Step 7: Select irrigaon method (example: Spray)
Step 8: Select irrigaon eciency (example: 70%). This is
the default seng that can be changed.
Step 9: Select irrigaon method ow rates
(example: 1 GPM (60 L/H)
Step 10: Select irrigaon method spacing
(example: 10’ (3 m)