Figuring out how a lot water your yard wants every week to remain wholesome and inexperienced will be tough, however the free cellular app — WaterMyYard — does the figuring for you.
WaterMyYard is a program of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service beneath the path of Man Fipps, Ph.D., PE, AgriLife Extension statewide irrigation specialist within the Texas A&M Division of Organic and Agricultural Engineering, Bryan-Faculty Station. This system is carried out in partnership with water districts, cities and public utilities.
WaterMyYard can also be a free smartphone app accessible for iOS and Android platforms that calculates the quantity of water your yard wants primarily based on localized climate situations together with temperature and rainfall.
Fipps mentioned the app could be very common with customers as a result of it notifies them when it’s time to irrigate. WaterMyYard at the moment covers an space containing about 30% of Texas’ single-family houses together with main metropolitan areas like better Houston and the jap half of the Dallas/Fort Price Metroplex.
Community Saves Water, Cash
WaterMyYard at the moment has greater than 48,800 customers, Fipps mentioned. Water financial savings from this system statewide are estimated to be 2.7 billion gallons a 12 months, sufficient to produce the water use of about 25,000 households every year. This water conservation equates to a water value financial savings of $10 million for WaterMyYard customers, roughly $230 per family every year.
Fipps’ calculations are primarily based upon yard water use in the course of the irrigation season, which runs from April to October for many areas of Texas. He estimates that over the previous 10 years, WaterMyYard customers have saved greater than 17.8 billion gallons of water. The cash financial savings are a bit extra sophisticated to find out due to various retail fee constructions throughout the state, however he estimates this system has saved customers round $73 million over the previous decade.
“Customers recognize the financial savings and conserving water, however they actually like this system as a result of it simplifies the method of watering their yard,” Fipps mentioned. “This system has actually solely grown via phrase of mouth, however the variety of customers has elevated steadily from 580 in 2013, the primary 12 months of this system, to greater than 48,000 as we speak.”
How WaterMyYard Works
To entry this system, go to the web site WaterMyYard.org or obtain the app from the Apple Retailer or Google Play. WaterMyYard is simply accessible in sponsored areas, together with greater than 70 cities like Lubbock, Corpus Christi, Houston, Plano, Denton, Highland Park and San Angelo.
This system makes use of a community of particular ET climate stations that file temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity, photo voltaic radiation and rainfall to calculate native evapotranspiration charges, Fipps mentioned. Evapotranspiration, or ET, is the science-based technique for figuring out the water necessities of crops.
The community consists of about 60 ET climate stations together with an increasing community of rain gauges that decide weekly watering suggestions throughout the 12 present service areas within the state. These suggestions are despatched by way of push notification to the person’s cellphone, by electronic mail or by textual content messing.
Every service space has a sponsor comparable to town, native water utility or water district serving to cowl the prices of this system by buying the climate stations for his or her areas, Fipps mentioned.
“We do get constructive suggestions from the community companions, and so they get constructive suggestions from customers,” he mentioned. “All our companions have stayed in this system since becoming a member of, and we’re in conversations with different municipalities to affix. It’s not an costly program for them, and it helps of their water conservation planning.”
Fipps encourages water districts, utilities and/or cities fascinated about becoming a member of this system to contact him or Charles Swanson, AgriLife Extension panorama irrigation program specialist, who runs the day-to-day operation of the community and app. Water prospects in areas that aren’t a part of the community also needs to attain out to their water supplier to encourage becoming a member of the WaterMyYard program.
Get to Know your Sprinkler System
Irrigation programs apply water at totally different charges, which is known as the precipitation fee, Fipps mentioned. The precipitation fee sometimes varies from 0.25 inches to 1.5 inches per hour in residence irrigation programs. When establishing your WaterMyYard account, choice of the right worth on your system is vital.
WaterMyYard has an easy-to-use instrument known as the Precipitation Price Wizard to help in selecting the precipitation fee that’s acceptable on your irrigation system. For those who already know your precipitation fee, you might enter it immediately, Fipps mentioned. There may be additionally an possibility for hose-ended sprinklers for householders who would not have a everlasting irrigation system.
Rainfall is commonly essentially the most variable climate measurement. WaterMyYard makes use of the rainfall recorded on the closest climate station, however customers can even enter their very own measured rainfall to enhance the watering suggestion, he mentioned. The app makes this straightforward to do.
“Having the ability to enter your personal rainfall quantities makes the WaterMyYard watering suggestions much more exact,” he mentioned. “When you set it up, simply search for the notifications and water your garden.”
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