UT engineers develop 'self-watering soil' to help farmers in dry regions

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have created a self-watering soil that they're hoping could transform the ag industry by letting farmers grow crops with less water.
The team developed a way to pull water from the air and distribute it to plants using certain materials inserted into the soil, Professor Guihua Yu explained."We use these SMAG—super moisture absorbing gels, for harvesting the water from the ambient air," Yu said."They actually are absorb