I live in Western Australia and just recently we had a heat wave that smashed my avocado tree that has been happily providing me fruit for years now but is now dying from a 43 degree Celsius day.
We have had much hotter days, some around the 46 degree’s but in the past, I have had my retic turned on and thus not affected the tree.
Unfortunately I had been told to turn off my retic to the avocado tree as I was killing it with kindness due to overwatering and led to believe it was big and old enough now that it had found it’s own water source.
I have a removed my existing retic controller, programmed and then wired into a Sonoff 4 Pro my current solenoids which now control all watering of the avocado tree.
So, I want to know if the soil is too dry and hence automate my retic.
Any ideas taking into account I can power anything I use with solar and batteries??
I use the ecowitt soil sensors in pots. They do work fairly well but as your neighbor to the east points out the probe is only about 3-4" deep. However if my knowledge of the avocado tree is correct (thank you wikipedia) don't they have a pretty shallow root system? Ecowitts might work just fine. I also have some experience with the Spruce sensors and found they dropped off the network frequently and were a pain to reset. One issue I've found with soil sensors is it is possible to position them in such a way that the water either collects underneath them or bypasses them, which means they are wildly inaccurate at first but settle into a more accurate reading after an hour or two. I might suggest several sensors placed strategically.
@sburke781's integration is rock solid and 100% local.
The avocado tree does have very shallow roots that reach out to the length of the tree branches and a large tap root in the centre that I mistakenly though had found its own water source.
Regardless though, this is exactly what I was looking for.
R&D to follow now, will keep you apprised of my progress.
