Proposed Modifications to the JBWD Webpage

Proposed Modifications to the JBWD Webpage:

Demonstration Garden/Smart Controller & CIMIS

We recommend that the page be moved to the Using Water Wisely/Save Water Outdoors tab. This would be more logical for someone looking for this type of information. Additionally, we recommend that the text be summarized, with illustrations and reordered for reference.

Suggested reformat:

Summary:

Outdoor Watering:

You can save water by adjusting landscape watering schedules in response to seasonal changes.

Attach Image:Smart controller water savings. (Caption: by using evapotranspiration data, you can adjust your irrigation schedule monthly to apply only the amount of water needed by plants.)

We use evapotranspiration data from our Joshua Tree CIMIS station to provide seasonal irrigation adjustments to our customers. (See CIMIS below) We take the hottest month of the year, representing the highest water requirement for your landscape and provide an index as to the percentage reduction that you should apply for any given month. Many newer controllers have a seasonal adjustment dial that makes this easy.

Attach Image: Graph with percentage of reduction. (Caption/Disclaimer: this information is provided monthly using a 4 year historical average. Extra measures should be taken to account for current weather variations.)

Evapotranspiration:

Attach Image: 2000px-Surface_water_cycle.svg (Caption/Definition: Evapotranspiration (ET) is the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's surface to the atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and waterbodies.)

CIMIS: The California Irrigation Management Information System, or CIMIS, is a network of 140 automated weather stations statewide that provide data that can be used to regulate landscape and agricultural watering systems. The Joshua Tree station came on line in December 2011 and generates information that lets you use your existing irrigation controller to schedule irrigation using the same information used by smart controllers.

Our CIMIS station records real-time temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, soil temperature, and wind conditions on the ground. The purpose of this program is to reduce landscape water waste with the added bonus of providing educational data for schools and research institutions, air resource monitoring, and more. Anyone can access the information via the internet by signing up for a free account at Go to the data tab and select station #233 for daily, weekly, or monthly reports and even have them delivered to your email address!

Insert Image: JT CIMIS

Smart Irrigation Controllers/ET Controllers: ET controllers are irrigation controllers which use weather based information to adjustment irrigation automatically throughout the year. These adjusting methods include use of historical ET, on-site sensors, or subscription services to track ET.

Our JBWD Demonstration Garden: The silver box to the left of the gate as you enter the gardens houses a smart controller, also known as an ET controller. ET stands for Evapotranspiration Rate, which is the amount of water used by plants and evaporated from the soil and leaf surface. Smart controllers make irrigation systems truly automatic by replacing the water used by plants each day depending on temperature, humidity, sunlight, and wind.

Our controller uses local ET data and an on-site weather sensor to apply only the water needed by the plants which are divided into hydrozones. If you haven’t mixed thirsty plants with your drought tolerant plants, this might be the way to eliminate the headache of changing the irrigation schedule throughout the year.

Insert link to JBWD Demonstration Garden page:

Historical Text Reference:

Info copied from webpage as is: (highlighted areas used in text above.)

Have you ever scratched your head wondering why you might see commercial properties running their sprinklers when it’s raining? Or wished that your own residential drip system could keep up with the weather changes, only turning on when the plants were truly thirsty instead of you having to make the constant adjustments to its electric timer? Well soon, those landscape irrigation scheduling problems may become as antiquated as rotary telephones!

The silver box to the left of the gate as you enter the gardens houses a smart controller, also known as an ET controller. ET stands for Evapotranspiration Rate, that is the amount of water used by plants and evaporated from the soil and leaf surface. Smart controllers make irrigation systems truly automatic by replacing the water used by plants each day depending on temperature, humidity, sunlight, and wind.

The California Irrigation Management Information System, or CIMIS, is a network of 140 automated weather stations statewide that provide data that can be used to regulate watering systems, with the Joshua Tree station becoming one of the newest ones in the network! You can now use your existing irrigation controller, but schedule it using the same information used by the smart controllers.

This state-of-the-art futuristic device will provide Morongo Basin Residents (free of charge) atmospheric information that gets sent to a central computer where it can be accessed to develop landscape watering schedules. It records real-time temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, soil temperature, and wind conditions on the ground. This is the data used in smart controllers. Ultimately, the goal of this program is to reduce landscape water waste with the added bonus of providing educational data for schools and research institutions, air resource monitoring, and more. Residential owners interested in watering their landscape only when it needs it will benefit greatly from this local accurate information.

Lead agencies bringing this technology home to our unique desert climate are Joshua Basin Water District and Copper Mountain College, with financial support from the Mojave Water Agency, Bollinger Consulting Group, and the Rainbird Corporation.

We’ll be posting ET information on this website soon, meanwhile you can log on to CIMIS at to access information on local temperature, precipitation, and more. Sign up for a free account by going to the CIMIS data tab. ONce registered you can go to station #233 for daily, weekly, or monthly reports and even have them delivered to your email address daily!

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