Patent ID: 8321061

Claim:
A method for delivering water to one or more plants wherein each plant resides at least partially in a quantity of soil, and is proximate to air that contains water vapor, said method comprising the steps of: operating a condensing unit at condensing intervals to convert amounts of the water vapor into water in liquid form; storing said water in liquid form in a reservoir, wherein the reservoir is connected to an irrigation system configured to selectively deliver water from the reservoir to each of the plants; accessing a database of horticultural information for an amount of water needed by a plant type of the one or more plants; generating one or more estimates of the moisture content of said quantity of soil, during a first specified time period; computing one or more watering intervals during the first specified time period, wherein each watering interval is computed, at least in part, as a function of values contained in the horticultural database, and also as a function of the estimates of moisture content; gathering data pertaining to said plant water need, wherein said gathered data is used to determine at given times whether it is necessary to operate the condensing unit; and operating the irrigation system to deliver water to each of the plants during each of the watering intervals.