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.

[Eudaimonia67]

Know of any sites that sell the towels?

[Grizz]

yeah where do you get it and whats the cost? great post, thanks.

[bongasaurus]

cool idea. ive seen that infomercial a few times on the food network...

that guy is such a douchebag. lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1L2w7IppCo

[frostynugs420]

im not questioning you knowledge silverback, but have you ever tried crystals like soil moist? i just cant see how something farbric like could hold more moisture than crystals?

it would have to swell to a rediculus size wouldnt it?
ive never even seen these things, please enlighten me

Hey guys.

frostynugs, this stuff is very strange material and it can hold 10X what crystals can hold in a smaller and much cheaper form. It does swell dramatically. I put a towel of this material out in the yard and after the dew fell, I litterally wrung over a cup full of water out of it just from the dew! It is so absorbent, that it actually sucked up the surrounding dew for over a 1'. It starts out like a piece of fiborous cloth and after absorbing moisture, is about 1" thick and is unreal the moisture it holds. I held a towel up to see where in the hell all that water went. Unreal to the point of unexplainable to me.

My mother in law bought these towels for me at Kmart in florida last Christmas and thats why they were laying aroud my garden shed. I never gave them a second thought until I started looking around for absorbent materials.They are currently being sold on local TV. The add says you can go to SHAMWOWZ!.COM or try ZORBIE.COM. I have my wife watching for the commercial. I think they are sold by Bamzu.com, but I don't know that for sure. ( it could be Bambzu.)

Im told by others that they are often sold in auto parts stores as space age drying towels for when you wash your car. I would start with the tv add.

Im currently testing the results of cutting little 1" chunks of the stuff to see if i can mix them into the grow.

I'll see what i can find. sb

[luciano28]

I seen the little 2 minute infomercial for the shamwow the other night while lying in bed high as hell and thought those things are bad ass. Never thought about using it for a grow though, leave it to you silverback. Let us know how it works out man, those things look super-absorbent and this might be something very useful. In fact the next time I see that ad, I think Im gonna buy it, I cant remember the price but you get 1 free "if you call now" I do remember. If its easy to cut, you could probably cut up really small pieces and mix it in your soil mix, Im thinking like the size of a perlite pellet.

Of course you gotta see what it is exactly composed of and if the company adds anything like fragrances or other chemicals. Maybe there is a cheaper way of getting the material than ordering it off that infomercial thing.

Check the infomercial out guys, its on late at night, the stuff is crazy absorbent from the looks of the ad.

Thats it luciano28. The stuff is "green friendly" according to the add. I googled SHAM WOW and found it but the ZORBIE site is better. The ones i have are white but I think you could soak up some clothing dye with it and make it any color you want.

The .com says it will hold 27 times it own weight in water. It would suck the life out of crystals.

[luciano28]

Did you see this silverback?
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This is pretty interesting, Im gonna see what else I can find.

No, luciano28, but i have now. That is the same stuff I guess. The zorbie towels are made of this stuff.

Actually, I see an equally significant aspect of this stuff is its tendency to distribute any moisture it encounters, evenly throughout the fabric. This creates a tendency to pump. If one end is in a pot, any water absorbed by the soil in that pot is immediately replaced. Thats why when i put one end in water and the other in soil, it actually transferred the water from the cup into the soil. I think you could cut strips and tie them together and transfer water for hundreds of feet just like a water hose. Every drop used on the other end or evaporated due to the air would be replaced immediately from the source. The absorbancy of it is freakish.