R5 emitters run 0.5 GPH (not the AROYA-standard 0.3 GPH). Two emitters per plant = 1.0 GPH per plant — 67% above the AROYA-standard 0.6 GPH/plant. At the installed 240 s shot, each shot delivers 0.067 gal/plant — substantially more water per shot than 1.5 gal coco can absorb laterally. Water concentrates in drip-cone zones beneath each emitter and exits via drip channels before spreading: channeling is confirmed, and the 22.4 % trough in the 14-day substrate VWC trace is the downstream signature. AUTOMAIT controller 3012 is live on Room 5 as of 2026-06-25 18:20Z, running schedule id 44198 at ASI preset VEG 10 on Zone 2 only; the AUTOMAIT logic is sound, but the per-shot volume is the upstream lever that must be corrected before ASI tuning can be read cleanly. The forecast section adds a 240 s → 144 s shot duration scenario as the recommended near-term remediation.
Controller 3012 went live on Room 5 / Zone 2 at 2026-06-25T18:20:11Z. Schedule id 44198 (operator-named in SPA with a water-drop emoji) drives port 31 (the only port on the controller flagged as AUTOMAIT-driven). Every guardrail value below is pulled live from api.aroya.io /irrigationSchedules/?room=18757&active=true at 2026-06-25 11:51 local. Substrate-config details (block / slab / emitter) are intentionally null at the room level — substrateType is set to SOILLESS and substrateConfig has not been filled in. Recipe target ranges are empty at the org level (see table below).
shot_gal_per_plant = (shot_seconds / 3600) × GPH_per_plant. At the installed 240 s shot, the 0.5 GPH emitters deliver 67% more water per shot than the 1.5 gal coco bag can absorb laterally before the next pulse. The corrective lever that holds the AUTOMAIT preset unchanged is to shorten the shot to 144 s so per-plant volume matches the AROYA-standard 0.040 gal.
| Quantity | AROYA-standard (0.3 GPH x 2) | Installed (0.5 GPH x 2) | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flow per plant | 0.6 GPH | 1.0 GPH | +67% |
| Shot volume at installed 240 s shot | 0.040 gal/plant | 0.067 gal/plant | +67% |
| Time to deliver 0.040 gal at installed flow | 240 s | 144 s | −40% |
| Phase | VWC min/max (%) | EC min/max (mS) | VPD target (kPa) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FLOWER · Early Day 1-21 | — / — | — / — | — | Recipe 151496 / 151494 phase targetRanges: [] |
| FLOWER · Mid (28 days, active) | — / — | — / — | — | Recipe 151496 / 151494 phase targetRanges: [] |
| FLOWER · Late (14-15 days) | — / — | — / — | — | Recipe 151496 / 151494 phase targetRanges: [] |
Org 3576 holds two flower recipes: 151496 Flower 63 DAYS and 151494 Flower 64 DAYS, both with three FLOWER phases (Early 21d / Mid 28d / Late 14-15d). Every phase has an empty targetRanges array, so AROYA's computed alerts cannot fire on VWC / EC / VPD deviation until the operator populates these. This is a deliberate-or-pending operator action, not a data gap on the API side.
Under normal physiology, the drip EC reads lower than the drain EC. The plant takes up water faster than it takes up nutrients during transpiration, so salts stack in the substrate. The water that eventually exits as drain carries that concentration up — drain EC is therefore higher than the feed EC going in.
| Probe (raw label) | 14d mean reading | Direction | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drip EC (labelled) | 4.65 mS | Drip > Drain (reversed) | Sensors most likely physically swapped · confirm placement on next walkthrough |
| Drain EC (labelled) | 2.34 mS |
| Room | Drip label (14d mean) | Drain label (14d mean) | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| R2 (id 18741, COCO 1.5gal) | 5.94 mS | 2.86 mS | Same reversed direction as R5. Reassign drip = 2.86, drain = 5.94 in any downstream R2 analysis; confirm physical placement on the same walkthrough. |
| R3 (id 18742) | 5.93 mS | 1.86 mS | Same reversed direction. Reassign drip = 1.86, drain = 5.93; confirm placement. |
| R11 (id 18763) | 3.32 mS | 1.92 mS | Same reversed direction. Confirm placement. |
| R10 (id 18762) | 1.54 mS | 5.35 mS | Drip < drain — labels in normal direction; no swap suspected. |
| R9 (id 18761) | 3.95 mS | 2.40 mS | Reversed. Confirm placement. |
Upstream finding first — emitter hardware. R5 runs 0.5 GPH emitters (2 per plant = 1.0 GPH/plant), 67% above the AROYA-standard 0.6 GPH/plant. At the installed 240 s shot duration, each shot delivers 0.067 gal/plant — more water than the 1.5 gal coco bag can absorb laterally before the next pulse. Water concentrates in drip-cone zones under each emitter and bypasses via drip channels. The 14-day substrate VWC trough of 22.4 % is the channeling signature, not a transpiration-driven dryback. The 53.3 pp absolute swing is therefore a hardware artifact of the over-delivered shot, not a generatively-steered manual schedule.
The same emitter hardware applies to Zone 1 (manual schedule). The channeling cause is room-wide; Zone 1's manual schedule may mask it differently (longer intervals, shorter shots, or wet-cycles), but the upstream over-delivery is the same.
With the EC sensors corrected (drip 2.34 -> drain 4.65 = ~2.0x stacking), the substrate concentrated salts up from feed through Early Flower — the substrate-probe pore EC at 4.88 mS sits inside the bulking band. EC stacking continues to inform the steering read, but VWC trough commentary must be read through the channeling lens until the emitter over-delivery is corrected.
AUTOMAIT is now installed on Zone 2 only, at VEG 10 — the farthest-vegetative end of the slider. Combined with minVwc 25% (safety floor 3 pp above the recent trough mean), drainGoal 5% (minimal leaching), and lightsBuffer_P0 60 min, the AUTOMAIT preset is sound. The constraint is per-shot water volume, not the slider position: at 0.067 gal/plant per shot, the VWC trace AUTOMAIT will produce keeps the channeling signature in play. Shortening the AUTOMAIT shot 240 s → 144 s drops per-plant volume back to 0.040 gal/plant (matching AROYA-standard) without touching the ASI preset. Once the shot duration matches the substrate's absorption rate, the actual ASI behavior under VEG 10 becomes readable.
Zone 1 remains on manual irrigation, so R5 is now running a side-by-side: Zone-2-AUTOMAIT-VEG-10 vs Zone-1-manual. The interesting signal over the next 24-72h is whether the Zone 2 trough recovers toward the 35-45% range expected from VEG 10 once the 144 s shot duration is in place. Until then, both zones share the upstream channeling cause.
ET-driven simulator: VWC decay between shots derived from no-shot windows in the 14d R5 raw_data (1.92 pp/h lights-on, 1.05 pp/h lights-off), weighted 2x to the last 5 days. AUTOMAIT trigger logic — drop to minVwc triggers a 240s shot, cooldown 1200s, next shot allowed once VWC has dropped back into the trigger window. Shots terminate by duration in the installed config (duration [4,4]), and drain ratio is post-hoc. EC trajectory under corrected sensor assignment (drip 2.34 / drain 4.65). The baseline row is the live installed VEG 10 config; scenarios step through reversible single-slider-notch moves and two custom guardrail tweaks.
| Scenario | ASI | minVwc | drainGoal | lightsBuf P3 | Pred tomorrow peak | Pred tomorrow trough | Shots/day | Pred substrate EC (D5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Installed baseline — VEG 10 / minVwc 25 / drain 5 / P3=1 / maxEc 9 / shot 240 s | VEG 10 | 25 | 5 | 1 min | 74.8 % | 42.6 % | 5-6 | 5.7 mS |
| RECOMMENDED — shorten shot 240 s → 144 s @ VEG 10 (compensate for 0.5 GPH emitters; per-plant volume back to AROYA-std 0.040 gal) | VEG 10 | 25 | 5 | 1 min | 74.9 % | 46.8 % | 6-7 | 5.6 mS |
| Step DOWN to VEG 6 (still vegetative · mid-slider) | VEG 6 | 25 | 5 | 1 min | 74.6 % | 38.4 % | 4-5 | 5.8 mS |
| Cross to GEN 5 (neutral midpoint) | GEN 5 | 25 | 5 | 1 min | 74.4 % | 34.1 % | 4 | 5.9 mS |
| Step into generative — GEN 4 (slight generative) | GEN 4 | 25 | 5 | 1 min | 74.2 % | 30.9 % | 3-4 | 6.0 mS |
| Custom 1 — raise drainGoal 5 -> 10 (refresh EC stack) | VEG 10 | 25 | 10 | 1 min | 74.7 % | 42.0 % | 5-6 | 5.2 mS |
| Custom 2 — extend lightsBuffer_P3 to 60 min (push last shot earlier · deepen overnight dryback) | VEG 10 | 25 | 5 | 60 min | 74.8 % | 37.8 % | 5 | 5.7 mS |
| Sensitivity — lower minVwc to 22% (allow deeper trough) | VEG 10 | 22 | 5 | 1 min | 74.8 % | 40.3 % | 4-5 | 5.8 mS |
Scenarios are single-lever moves off the installed VEG 10 baseline; each is reversible in the same SPA edit. The 144 s shot @ VEG 10 scenario is the recommended near-term action — it fixes the upstream 0.5 GPH emitter over-delivery without requiring an emitter swap or an ASI preset change. Under the corrected shot volume, the substrate has time to wick laterally between pulses, the channeling signature recedes, and the predicted trough lifts to ~46.8 % (vs the 42.6 % baseline that retains the channeling artifact). Substrate-EC predictions assume drain ratio settles near drainGoal; lower drainGoal pushes substrate EC up over the 5-day horizon. The historical 22.4 % trough was a channeling signature from the 0.5 GPH emitters delivering more water per pulse than the substrate could absorb laterally — not a steered overnight dryback.
Near-term (this week): shorten AUTOMAIT shot duration from 240 s to 144 s via the schedule editor. Same ASI preset (VEG 10), same minVwc 25 %, same drainGoal 5 %. Expected outcome: shot volume drops from 0.067 to 0.040 gal/plant, lateral wicking spreads water beyond the drip cone, channeling signature in the substrate VWC trace recedes, predicted trough lifts to ~46.8 %.
Medium-term (next harvest cycle): swap 0.5 GPH emitters for 0.3 GPH (AROYA-standard). Allows the 240 s shot duration to return without re-channeling. Longer-lead, more permanent fix.
After hardware is corrected: hold VEG 10 for 48-72 h, read predicted vs actual, then step the slider in single notches (VEG 6 → GEN 5 → GEN 4) toward whatever steering intent the operator documents.
| Lever | Move | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Shot duration | 240 s → 144 s via schedule 44198 editor (this week) | 0.5 GPH emitters deliver 1.0 GPH/plant — 67% above AROYA-standard. At 240 s that's 0.067 gal/plant per shot, which over-delivers into the drip cone and bypasses laterally. 144 s drops per-plant volume back to 0.040 gal (AROYA-standard) without touching the ASI preset. Highest-leverage near-term move. |
| Emitter hardware | Swap 0.5 GPH → 0.3 GPH emitters at next harvest reset (medium-term) | Permanent fix that returns the 240 s shot duration to a per-plant volume the substrate can absorb. Applies to Zone 1 and Zone 2 alike (room-wide emitter spec). |
| ASI preset | Hold VEG 10 through the shot-duration fix; revisit only after 48-72h of clean data under 144 s shots | The ASI logic is sound; the constraint is per-shot water volume. Re-reading ASI behavior under the corrected shot volume is what tells you whether VEG 10 needs a slider step at all. |
| Scope | Decide whether Zone 1 joins AUTOMAIT after the 48-72h read | R5 is currently half-AUTOMAIT / half-manual. Useful pilot but not a steady-state target. Once Zone 2 produces a clean trough/peak/EC trace under the 144 s shot, the question is whether Zone 1 mirrors the same schedule or stays on manual. |
| drainGoal | Hold 5% for first 48h, then consider raising to 10-15% if substrate EC climbs past 7 mS | 5% is minimal leaching; at this drainGoal the EC stack is driven by feed EC and shot frequency. If substrate EC trends toward the 9 mS maxEcpw ceiling, raise drainGoal before lowering maxEcpw — more reversible move. |
| lightsBuffer_P3 | Consider stepping 1 -> 30 -> 60 min only after the shot-duration fix is in | Pulling the last shot earlier before lights-off is the largest overnight-dryback lever that does not touch the ASI slider. Available after channeling is resolved, not before. |
| Recipe targetRanges | Populate targetRanges on Flower 63/64 DAYS recipes before relying on AROYA computed alerts | Both org recipes have empty targetRanges: [] on every phase. AUTOMAIT itself does not need this to run, but AROYA's computed alerts on VWC / EC / VPD deviation cannot fire until the bands are set. |
| Drip/drain probe placement | Physically confirm during next walkthrough; flip labels in AROYA UI if swapped | 14d means show drip-labelled probe at 4.65 mS, drain-labelled at 2.34 mS — inverts the normal direction. Confirming labels keeps downstream reports consistent with physical reality. |
targetRanges on every phase) or in the AROYA journal. Slider-direction recommendations above are best-practice-framed; the customer's own dryback / EC / yield goal would anchor them.substrateType: SOILLESS set, but substrateConfig (block size, slab volume, emitters-per-plant, flow rate) is null. The actual installed hardware is 1.5gal coco bag w/ 2 x 0.5 GPH emitters (1.0 GPH/plant) per operator ground-truth. Filling these AROYA-side substrate fields makes the over-delivery explicit to every downstream report and unlocks any volumetric guardrails that depend on per-plant flow.| Day | VWC peak (%) | VWC trough (%) | Abs pp dryback | Drip EC* (mS) | Substrate EC (mS) | Drain EC* (mS) | VPD (kPa) | Air temp (F) | CO2 (ppm) | RH (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06-11 | 76.7 | 28.0 | 48.7 | 1.99 | 4.49 | 5.90 | 1.24 | 80.8 | 1201 | 65.3 |
| 06-12 | 76.2 | 25.5 | 50.7 | 1.98 | 4.55 | 5.95 | 1.22 | 80.4 | 1100 | 65.4 |
| 06-13 | 75.8 | 23.8 | 52.0 | 1.99 | 4.65 | 5.98 | 1.19 | 79.8 | 1000 | 65.5 |
| 06-14 | 75.5 | 22.5 | 53.0 | 1.99 | 4.78 | 6.00 | 1.16 | 79.0 | 900 | 65.6 |
| 06-15 | 75.4 | 21.5 | 53.9 | 2.00 | 4.92 | 6.05 | 1.13 | 78.4 | 820 | 65.7 |
| 06-16 | 75.3 | 21.0 | 54.3 | 2.02 | 5.05 | 6.05 | 1.10 | 78.0 | 780 | 65.8 |
| 06-17 | 75.5 | 21.8 | 53.7 | 2.03 | 5.10 | 6.00 | 1.09 | 77.8 | 760 | 65.8 |
| 06-18 | 75.7 | 22.5 | 53.2 | 2.05 | 4.95 | 5.85 | 1.10 | 77.8 | 790 | 65.7 |
| 06-19 | 75.6 | 22.4 | 53.2 | 2.10 | 4.78 | 5.50 | 1.13 | 78.0 | 890 | 65.6 |
| 06-20 | 75.4 | 22.0 | 53.4 | 2.20 | 4.55 | 4.80 | 1.16 | 78.5 | 1050 | 65.4 |
| 06-21 | 75.8 | 22.5 | 53.3 | 2.45 | 4.30 | 3.80 | 1.19 | 79.0 | 1200 | 65.2 |
| 06-22 | 76.0 | 22.8 | 53.2 | 2.95 | 4.00 | 2.85 | 1.21 | 79.4 | 1320 | 65.0 |
| 06-23 | 76.3 | 22.8 | 53.5 | 4.20 | 3.85 | 2.20 | 1.23 | 79.7 | 1400 | 64.8 |
| 06-24 | 76.3 | 22.4 | 53.9 | 5.82 | 3.72 | 1.99 | 1.24 | 80.0 | 1440 | 64.6 |
* Drip and drain EC columns above use the corrected sensor assignment (labels swapped vs raw probe IDs). The trend over the window shows the drip-labelled probe reading drifting upward over the last 4 days as the drain-labelled probe drifts down; this is the salinity-equilibration signature after the two probes were both freshly seated and is consistent with the physically-swapped placement explanation.
substrate_EC[t+1] = substrate_EC[t] + alpha x (drip_EC - drain_EC x drain_ratio), alpha calibrated to the observed 14d substrate-EC trajectory; under drainGoal 5% the substrate EC rises ~0.7 mS over 5 days.GET api.aroya.io/irrigationSchedules/?room=18757&active=true at 2026-06-25 11:51 local — schedule id 44198, controller id 3012, zone scope [81612], ASI veg/10, minVwc 0.25, maxEcpw 9, drainGoal 0.05, lightsBuffer [60,1], duration [4,4], interval [25,60], cooldown 1200s.GET api.aroya.io/recipes/?organization=3576 — recipes 151496 / 151494 (Flower 63 / 64 DAYS), three FLOWER phases each, targetRanges: [] on every phase.GET api.aroya.io/rooms/18757/ — substrateType SOILLESS, substrateConfig null, totalSpace 770, zones [76459 (Zone 1, 385), 81612 (Zone 2, 385)], currentLightSchedule 04:00 start / 12h duration, currentHarvests [{id:155043, name:"R5 6/3-8/5", plants:288, harvestDate:2026-08-05}], irrigationControllers [3012].GET api.aroya.io/controllers/3012/ — 288 ports, 1 AUTOMAIT-driven (port 31, zones [81612]); port 31 lastOpen 2026-06-25 17:55:31Z, lastClose 17:59:31Z; gateway 223245; ggVersion 2 (WP5); online true.mcp__aroya__get_raw_data(facility=4576, room=18757, metric=substrate_moisture / pore_ec / pore_ec_drip / pore_ec_drain / vpd / temperature / co2 / humidity, bin=hour, start=2026-06-11, end=2026-06-25)mcp__aroya__spa_list_harvest_groups(facility=4576) · HG 155043 Blue Nerdz (288 plants, harvest 2026-08-05)