G
Guest
Our weather has gotten dryer and after loosing most of my crop to drought last year I was determined to find some way to adapt. After reading all the threads by Dignan, Backcountry, Fast Pine and others, I set out with Backcountry's auto watering pot design in mind for some experiments. I ended up with an 18 gallon plastic storage tub full of sand and peat with the side cut out and replaced with plexiglass so I could see the roots. I buried a 2 litre plasitic bottle with holes punched in the bottom on both sides of the tub all the way to their necks and planted a tomato plant in the middle. When I filled the bottles with water, the water would leak out of the holes into the soil. The contraption worked in that it distributed water to the roots. Last year, the ground was so hard that it wouldn't accept water. Problem fixed I thought.
As I watched the test over time, I noticed that I was watering all of the soil in the container, and much more than my roots needed. I began to consider how I could retain the moisture into the soil around the roots and not loose it to the surrounding soil . I am an in ground grower, so my first though was a bag that seperated my soil from the surrounding soil, but unless your bag is the exact same size as your roots, you are still going to be watering soil that isnt needed by the plants. Water is hard to carry.
I then started using materials such as vermiculite, compost, polymer watering crystals and anything else to retain the moisture just around the roots. In my shed, i discovered a material that may be a miracle find for the cannabis grower. That material is ZORBIE. Also commonly sold on TV as SHAMWOWZ!
This material retains water thousands of times that of watering crystals. One cloth, 20" x 20" will absorb and hold over 2 quarts of water. I estimate it would take 15 bottles of agrosoke crystals to absorb that much water.
This material is so absorbant that the ground around it cannot suck it dry. An equillibrium is reached approximately 1" from the strip of material where the ground is pulling but the strip of Zorbie cloth is sucking back. The water that touches this strip is maintained within 1" of the strip and the roots can utilize the water. The remaining soil remains dryer.
The discovery of this material solved my problem immediately. I cut 2" strips of the material, dug a hole and buried the material about 8" deep in a cross like pattern in the hole, leaving lugs of the material long enough that they would stick through the soil. When moisture touches the material, it is dispersed the entire length of the material immediately. I can water the lug and the moisture will be sucked to the root area where it will remain until used.
Swamp Container growers: I cut strips of this material about 2" and tied them together for a 40"x 2" piece. I put one end in a pot of soil and the other end in a cup of water. Because of the tendency of the material to distribute moisture evenly along its length, the water wicks through the strip into the soil in the pot for a constant source of moisture . Swamp growers with ground water can create a wick and perhaps avoid watering alll together.
I also considered water just below the surface. Ive seen areas where you didnt really see any water until you dug a hole. For ground like this, i would hypothesize that you could dig a small pit, place your Shamwowz in it with a strip leading up and into the pot, also creating a self watering wick system.
Dry/Drought conditions: This stuff is so absorbant that the possiblities are many. I believe that a design where a small mat of this material laid flat on the ground with a wick buried with the plant, may absorb enough dew during the night and morning, to wick it into the strip burried with the plant and may sustain the plant even if it didn't rain if the plant was small in stature. I squeezed a cup of water out after leaving a towel in the yard overnight.
It is also my belief that you could take the autopot design and bury 2, 1 gallon containers on either side of the grow hole and place wick of this material between the jugs and through the root system. Since the absorbancy behavior of this stuff is to draw, it wont allow the soil to absorb the water past the equillibrium point i mentioned above and away from the roots. The roots however will grow right into this stuff so hypothetically, the only real water used would be that taken by the plant. With 2 gallons of water, this may last a long long time and provide moisture for a plant without rain. Just me thinkin though.
Because of the absorbancy of this material, the ground cannot suck all of the water out and the roots of a plant will grow right into the material. If there is any source of moisture available anywhere near the plant, this material can collect it and distribute it to your plant.
For any grower with an intrest in retaining, distributing or collecting moisture you really need to research this material. It will litterally suck any moisture out of the soil and provide it to your plant.
If water crystals were a riding lawn mower, this product would be a hand made Lambrogini.
As I watched the test over time, I noticed that I was watering all of the soil in the container, and much more than my roots needed. I began to consider how I could retain the moisture into the soil around the roots and not loose it to the surrounding soil . I am an in ground grower, so my first though was a bag that seperated my soil from the surrounding soil, but unless your bag is the exact same size as your roots, you are still going to be watering soil that isnt needed by the plants. Water is hard to carry.
I then started using materials such as vermiculite, compost, polymer watering crystals and anything else to retain the moisture just around the roots. In my shed, i discovered a material that may be a miracle find for the cannabis grower. That material is ZORBIE. Also commonly sold on TV as SHAMWOWZ!
This material retains water thousands of times that of watering crystals. One cloth, 20" x 20" will absorb and hold over 2 quarts of water. I estimate it would take 15 bottles of agrosoke crystals to absorb that much water.
This material is so absorbant that the ground around it cannot suck it dry. An equillibrium is reached approximately 1" from the strip of material where the ground is pulling but the strip of Zorbie cloth is sucking back. The water that touches this strip is maintained within 1" of the strip and the roots can utilize the water. The remaining soil remains dryer.
The discovery of this material solved my problem immediately. I cut 2" strips of the material, dug a hole and buried the material about 8" deep in a cross like pattern in the hole, leaving lugs of the material long enough that they would stick through the soil. When moisture touches the material, it is dispersed the entire length of the material immediately. I can water the lug and the moisture will be sucked to the root area where it will remain until used.
Swamp Container growers: I cut strips of this material about 2" and tied them together for a 40"x 2" piece. I put one end in a pot of soil and the other end in a cup of water. Because of the tendency of the material to distribute moisture evenly along its length, the water wicks through the strip into the soil in the pot for a constant source of moisture . Swamp growers with ground water can create a wick and perhaps avoid watering alll together.
I also considered water just below the surface. Ive seen areas where you didnt really see any water until you dug a hole. For ground like this, i would hypothesize that you could dig a small pit, place your Shamwowz in it with a strip leading up and into the pot, also creating a self watering wick system.
Dry/Drought conditions: This stuff is so absorbant that the possiblities are many. I believe that a design where a small mat of this material laid flat on the ground with a wick buried with the plant, may absorb enough dew during the night and morning, to wick it into the strip burried with the plant and may sustain the plant even if it didn't rain if the plant was small in stature. I squeezed a cup of water out after leaving a towel in the yard overnight.
It is also my belief that you could take the autopot design and bury 2, 1 gallon containers on either side of the grow hole and place wick of this material between the jugs and through the root system. Since the absorbancy behavior of this stuff is to draw, it wont allow the soil to absorb the water past the equillibrium point i mentioned above and away from the roots. The roots however will grow right into this stuff so hypothetically, the only real water used would be that taken by the plant. With 2 gallons of water, this may last a long long time and provide moisture for a plant without rain. Just me thinkin though.
Because of the absorbancy of this material, the ground cannot suck all of the water out and the roots of a plant will grow right into the material. If there is any source of moisture available anywhere near the plant, this material can collect it and distribute it to your plant.
For any grower with an intrest in retaining, distributing or collecting moisture you really need to research this material. It will litterally suck any moisture out of the soil and provide it to your plant.
If water crystals were a riding lawn mower, this product would be a hand made Lambrogini.
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