07/11/2026
Somewhere around 4,000 years ago, farmers in China and the Near East discovered that an unglazed clay pot buried in a field and filled with water would slowly release that water directly into the surrounding soil at exactly the rate the nearby plant roots could absorb it. The pot emptied over days rather than hours, the surrounding soil never became waterlogged, and plants grew with a root density and vigor that surface-irrigated neighbors couldn't match π.