Glossary
Definitions of the terms used on this site and in the dashboard.
31 terms. Jump to: C S Z R V P F D G K H E I T A
- Crop steering
- Watering container plants in small shots, timed by how far the substrate has dried back, so the plants lean toward vegetative or generative growth. It describes an intended direction, not a guaranteed plant response.
- Used in: How it works
- Shot
- One short delivery of water to one zone. Its size is a percentage of the substrate volume.
- Used in: How it works, Safety
- Zone
- A group of plants on one valve. Each zone has its own probes, targets and day chart.
- Used in: Hardware, System map
- Room
- A set of zones that share lights, a kill switch and usually a pump. A room can have up to 24 zones, and an install can have several rooms.
- Used in: Is it for me?
- VWC (moisture)
- Volumetric water content: water volume divided by the total measured sample volume, usually given as a percentage. It is not percent plant-available water.
- Used in: Hardware, How it works
- Pore EC
- Conductivity of the water in the substrate's pore spaces, in mS/cm. Feed, bulk substrate, pore-water and runoff EC are different measurements and are not interchangeable.
- Used in: Hardware
- Feed EC and feed pH
- The conductivity and pH of the water you feed, read from probes in the feed line or tank. Crop Steering uses them as safety checks before a shot.
- Used in: Safety, Hardware
- Dryback
- The fall in VWC between shots, overnight or in the morning. Crop Steering measures each zone's dryback from that zone's own peak.
- Used in: How it works
- Field capacity
- A configured reference in the software. Establish the drained container condition with a documented method; an entered value does not prove physical capacity.
- Used in: How it works
- Vegetative steering
- Conditions meant to support vegetative growth, usually wetter with gentler drybacks.
- Used in: How it works
- Generative steering
- Conditions meant to support reproductive development, usually with harder drybacks and a saltier root zone.
- Used in: How it works
- P0: morning dryback
- After lights-on, the controller waits on configured timing and dryback conditions before the first shot.
- Used in: How it works
- P1: ramp
- Small shots, some minutes apart, until VWC reaches the peak target. The ramp fills the substrate slowly.
- Used in: How it works
- P2: maintenance
- Through the day, a maintenance shot whenever VWC falls to the re-water point.
- Used in: How it works
- P3: overnight dryback
- The usual shots stop before lights-off. The controller gives only a rescue shot when a zone becomes too dry.
- Used in: How it works
- Rescue shot
- A shot given in P3 only when a zone falls to its rescue floor. Rescue shots are spaced apart and still pass the safety checks.
- Used in: Safety
- Peak target
- The VWC the P1 ramp aims for. The maintenance band runs from the re-water point to the peak target.
- Used in: How it works
- Catch test
- Measuring the water that comes out of the drippers in a known time. Only a catch test or a flow meter shows the water the plants really got.
- Used in: Safety, Get started
- Kill switch (Watering)
- The Watering switch of a room (Engine Enabled in Home Assistant). With it off, the controller opens no valve in that room. An unreadable kill switch counts as off. It does not isolate electrical power.
- Used in: Safety
- Room in use
- A setting for an empty room: off stops watering and room alerts. It is not a power isolator either.
- Used in: Safety
- Hold
- A shot that a safety check stopped. The hold is shown on the dashboard and recorded with its alert code.
- Used in: Safety
- Guard (safety check)
- One of the fixed, ordered checks that run before every shot. The first one that fails holds the shot.
- Used in: Safety, System map
- Read-back
- Reading each pump, main-line and valve switch after switching it, to prove it really turned on and then off. A switch that does not read back stops watering.
- Used in: Safety
- Entity
- Home Assistant's name for one thing it can read or switch: a sensor, a switch, a valve, a number, a button. Crop Steering works with entities, not with devices.
- Used in: Hardware, System map
- Integration
- The part of Crop Steering installed with HACS. It keeps rooms, zones, settings, plans and history, and adds the Crop Steering page to the sidebar. It does not operate equipment.
- Used in: How it works, System map
- Controller
- The part of Crop Steering installed from the Home Assistant app store or run in Docker. It reads the probes each minute, decides each shot and operates the pump and valves with the safety checks.
- Used in: How it works, System map
- Envelope (AI limits)
- The hard limits code checks every AI answer against. When the envelope refuses an answer, nothing changes and the reason is logged.
- Used in: How the AI is used, Safety
- Grow plan
- Targets that change by week or day across a whole grow. You save a plan as a draft, then arm it; an armed plan starts at the next lights-on.
- Used in: Features
- Timer program
- A schedule for a zone set to water by timer instead of by steering. Timer shots go through the same safety checks.
- Used in: How it works
- Alert code
- The code at the end of every notification and Repairs card, such as CS-101. Each code has a meaning, an effect on watering and a fix.
- Used in: Get help