Patent ID: 8793024

Claim:
An irrigation controller, comprising: a control panel including a display and a plurality of user inputs that enable a user to enter one or more watering programs, each watering program including at least one start time, at least one zone assigned to the watering program, a run time for each zone, and a percentage adjustment feature, the plurality of user inputs further enable the user to manually adjust a percentage adjustment value of the percentage adjustment feature for each watering program; a computer processor operatively connected to the control panel; a memory connected to the computer processor, said computer processor configured to execute programs stored in the memory; a plurality of switches operatively connected to the processor for turning a power signal on and off to a plurality of valves that deliver water to a plurality of sprinklers organized into different ones of said zones of an irrigation site; programming stored in the memory to accept input from a user via the plurality of user inputs to implement said one or more watering programs, wherein during each run time of each watering program, said computer processor operates ones of said plurality of switches to turn said power signal on to one or more of said plurality of valves thereby delivering said water to ones of said plurality of sprinklers to irrigate the at least one zone associated with that watering program, said programming further accepting input from the user via the user inputs to implement the percentage adjustment feature of each watering program to increase or decrease said run time of each zone assigned to that watering program by said percentage adjustment value, said percentage adjustment value being a percentage of said run time, wherein the computer processor implements said increase or decrease of said run time by said percentage adjustment value; and programming stored in memory that calculates an amount of time for at least one watering program until a signal from at least one soil moisture sensor associated with that watering program indicates a predetermined soil moisture level, compares said amount of time to reach the predetermined soil moisture level to the run time as increased or decreased by the percentage adjustment value for that watering program, and automatically increases or decreases said percentage adjustment value of said percentage adjustment feature for that watering program based on the comparison.