Crop steering open sprinkler kit

#1

I’m looking to purchase the Crop Steering Open Sprinkler kit. I’m experienced with crop steering using single devices to track VWC and base my irrigations from that. I have some questions about the system.

1: can I set alternate parameters for the P1? For example, if VWC is <60% then begin P1 program after 1 hour of lights turning on. The overriding parameter being that if VWC is >60% then pause P1 until VWC dryback target is achieved.

2: if I have multiple sensors in a room, how does the hub work out which sensor to use as its triggers? Does it work out an average?

3: I’ve noticed that the free plan has X amount of readings the device can take per day. Can I change the rate of these readings to save datapoints? So rather than every minute, change it to every 5 minutes or 10 minutes?

Thank you

#2

Hi there, thank you for your interest!

  1. The initial answer is Yes. How our system works with Dryback and Crop steering is basically this -
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At the start of the day you wait until the target VWC is achieved. Then it stops watering until the minimal value is hit. You can select a time window during which this happens.

I’m attaching a screenshot with the in-app explanation.
Please lmk if further clarification is needed.

  1. You select a sensor per each automation.
    For example, Automation 1 is triggered if VWC sensor 1 reading is below 50% and Automation 2 is triggered if VWC sensor 2 reading is below 40%.

  2. No need to worry about this. This is about the number of http calls one can make to our public API.
    So there, of course, no limitation in the app. It’s also a pretty high limit for the public api.

#3

Concurrent automation program issue - moved here.

#4

I’m happy to discuss this (though I can’t promise any changes) and we appreciate your feedback.

But this doesn’t seem to be related to the thread? Could you please repost this where applicable and I’ll clean this topic up a bit.

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#5

Fair enough, I was hoping my setup example would help and then I got carried away…

Created a new thread here

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#6

Thanks for the information.

Just to clarify, is each shot size based on a target EC rather than time? For example, I do 6% shot sizes ( about 6 minutes) with 15 minute breaks in between to prevent channelling. If your program goes off 1 shot till a designated VWC then that can cause 2 issues. 1, if the shot size is too long, say 8/9/10+ minutes in order to try and reach a set VWC target, then that will cause channeling. 2, if it’s reading the VWC whilst the shot size is occurring then that will lead to false readings as it needs that break in between for the medium to soak up the water and spread evenly through the substrate and then provide an accurate reading.

Ideally i would like it to run VWC reading, then trigger a timed shot of my choosing (not a target VWC shot), then take readings after a break to then determine when to run the next shot, and so on. Is this possible?

Thanks

#7

I’ve just realised the picture shows exactly what I said. My apologies. That’s good news then!

Do you have any pictures of the what a VWC graph looks like during P1 phase?

#8

Screenshot 2026-01-20 at 16.13.19
Screenshot 2026-01-20 at 16.13.191093×543 27 KB

#9

Ideally i would like it to run VWC reading, then trigger a timed shot of my choosing (not a target VWC shot), then take readings after a break to then determine when to run the next shot, and so on. Is this possible? (c)

I think there needs to be some clarification here.
Our app has two ways of interacting with OS.

Scheduled waterings and Automations.

  1. Scheduled waterings are largely the same thing as the OS scheduled runs - just in the Pulse App.

2 ) Automations on the other hand are triggered when VWC readings cross certain thresholds.
When you create an Automation you set the duration of each station on the sprinkler and the VWC threshold that it needs to cross to fire.

For Crop steering - there’s an additional option of watering until a second (higher) threshold is reached. (please see my screenshot of the Pulse App ). The way this works is - after the smaller threshold is hit - it will continue to water till it reaches the second one, and then wait until the smaller threshold.

  1. These issues are usually mitigated by having several automation programs and pause intervals between them. I can’t really comment on the channeling myself as I’m not a grower, but lmk and i’ll ping out team to see if they can help you.

Hope this clears things up!

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