Domestic watering and agricultural irrigation control system

Abstract

An improved watering/irrigation control system for use in conjunction with automatic domestic lawn and plant watering systems and/or automatic agricultural irrigation systems that utilizes historical rainfall data and/or predictive rainfall data or restrictive watering data for a determination of when standard timed periodic irrigation or watering operations should be interrupted or withheld given the existence of sufficient rainfall already on the ground or a sufficient likelihood that such rainfall will occur within a predetermined period of time such that the normal watering or irrigation cycle is made unnecessary. The invention utilizes a coded signal transmitted from a centralized location or through common carriers; such as, cable, telephone, paging services, or radio and television broadcast that is received and interpreted by a local unit and utilized to provide predictive rainfall or restrictive watering information to a processor that activates or deactivates the standard timed watering or irrigation cycle. Such predictive rainfall or restrictive watering information may be used alone in a system or is combined with or supplements historical rainfall data in a manner that provides a more efficient watering or irrigation cycle and creates fewer watering cycles that end up being unnecessary in view of concurrent rainfall. This historical rainfall data processing system may be used alone to control watering and irrigation.