Technical information
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A ne-textured soil is referred to as clay soil. Sandy soil
is a coarse-textured soil. Numerous soil properes are
inuenced by texture, including drainage, water-holding
capacity, aeraon, suscepbility to erosion and organic
maer 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 inuences how much
water is available to the plants. Clay soils have a greater
water-holding capacity than sandy soils. In addion, well-
drained soils typically have good soil aeraon 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 griy and if formed into a ball when
moist, falls apart easily.
Loamy soil: Feels somewhat griy, retains water easily
and is easy to work with it. It has relavely even amounts
of sand, silt, and clay. If formed into a ball when moist,
will hold its shape, yet sll will break apart easily when
squeezed.
Clay soil: Forms large, hard clods, and cracks form on
the surface. Clay soils feel scky 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 acvate and set
the ET feature, adjust budgets, and set wind and rain
gauge sensors. The ET MONITOR screens are used to
input important site informaon that are partly based on
exisng factors on each zone, which is then downloaded
to the LEIT-2ET controller. With the ET data received from
the weather staon the LEIT-2ET controller calculates
the hourly and daily local microclimate and adjusts or
overrides the daily scheduled irrigaon program.
ET Eding can be used to edit ET sengs. The Budget
feature is used to reect seasonal changes by adjusng
each month’s irrigaon schedule by percentages from
10% to 200%. The Rain Gauge seng is used to select
rainfall amounts from 1/8” to 1” (3 mm to 25 mm). This
data, coupled with informaon provided by the weather
staon, will adjust or override the irrigaon program.
Wind Speed informaon provided by the weather staon
overrides irrigaon 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 acvated on the LEIT RC2ET
handset, the weather staon transmits hourly and
daily ET informaon to the LEIT-2ET controller. The
informaon transmied includes temperature, wind
speed, humidity, radiaon, rainfall, and hourly ETo values.
Operang the LEIT RC2ET remote control handset,
the user adds addional detailed informaon on each
site zone that includes soil type, plant category, plant
density, percentage of slope, irrigaon method, irrigaon
eciency with ow rates and spacing. This informaon
is uploaded to the LEIT-2ET controller, which uses it to
determine the plants water loss and the total irrigaon
rate per day needed. With this informaon along with
other factors, including depth of irrigaon, allowable
depleon 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 duraon that the user set originally. The
controller performs the daily calculaons needed at
midnight to override or adjust the scheduled irrigaon
program specically for each zone, to compensate for
evapotranspiraon (ET).
Using the ET MONITOR feature in the ENVIRONMENT
screen, the user can enter detailed site informaon for
each zone (valve #) and download this informaon to the
LEIT-2ET controller. The controller uses the informaon
received from the handset and the weather staon to
adjust the daily irrigaon schedule. The result can be
reviewed in the REPORT MENU, CURRENT STATUS and
HISTORY menus. The controller can receive informaon
from more then one weather staon in the area, if
available.
Steps used to congure each zone’s sengs by
condions when acvang ET:
Step 1: Select plants stage of life (example: Mature)
Step 2: Select soil type (example: Clay)
Step 3: Select plant category (example: Mix planng)
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 irrigaon method (example: Spray)
Step 8: Select irrigaon eciency (example: 70%). This is
the default seng that can be changed.
Step 9: Select irrigaon method ow rates
(example: 1 GPM (60 L/H)
Step 10: Select irrigaon method spacing
(example: 10’ (3 m)