A Verdant Vessel in the Northern Michigan University ceramics studio (Photo courtesy of Northern Michigan University)

By Northern Michigan University

MARQUETTE – Northern Michigan University students in an intro to entrepreneurship course create businesses from scratch on a tight timeline and gain experience in the associated accounting, finance, management and marketing aspects. The businesses are shut down when the class ends and all net proceeds are donated to area charitable organizations. Verdant Vessels, an environmentally friendly, passive clay pot irrigation system, was one of the new venture highlights last semester. Its $195 in proceeds benefited the NMU Food Pantry.

The idea originated with May graduate Sergiy Blackwood, who won the Innovation in Technology Award at the Celebration of Student Scholarship in April. He had taken a social entrepreneurship class, taught by Corinne Bodeman, which partners with the international nonprofit Global Brigades to connect students with small businesses in developing countries that need help.

Blackwood’s team was paired with Maria from a family-owned clay pottery business in Honduras. She sold products primarily from a storefront, but also participated in trade shows. The team conducted several meetings with Maria and the Global Brigades staff, focusing in large part on how to reach new customer segments and possibly sell online.

“I wanted to think as far outside the box as possible to come up with something that could help Maria stand out from the surrounding, often homogenous competition,” Blackwood said. “I set out to do some independent research into unique uses for clay pottery and came across the first mention of this irrigation method in a 2001 scientific journal article that explored its remarkable effectiveness. I didn’t invent the technology; it’s actually an ancient technique used thousands of years ago but largely forgotten.”

It remains one of the most water-efficient irrigation systems today, Blackwood added, up to 10 times more efficient than traditional surface irrigation and about four times more effective than modern drip systems.

“It uses a buried, unglazed, porous clay pot that’s filled with water,” he said. “The water gradually diffuses through the pot’s walls based on the surrounding plants’ needs, creating a passive, self-regulating irrigation system. This setup can be further enhanced by connecting the pots to a larger water reservoir elevated above ground, which allows for a gravity-fed drip system and reduces how often the pots need to be refilled.”

Blackwood pitched the idea to Maria at the end of the semester. She expressed genuine interest in the unique, utility-based product that would differentiate her family’s pottery from others in the competitive marketplace, but he is unsure whether she adopted it.

In addition to promoting a potentially transformative product for a small business abroad, Blackwood also sparked interdisciplinary collaboration at NMU. Ceramics professor Brian Kakas expressed interest in helping to bring the idea to life locally, so Blackwood allowed students in Bodeman’s intro to entrepreneurship class to create Verdant Vessels based on his research. Adam Hop, a student from the group who developed the business, won $4,500 in the NMU Innovation Week Big Pitch contest.

“The system is designed for the U.P. specifically, where sandy soil is a problem for most home gardeners,” Hop said. “This passive irrigation method allows for our plants to be watered more effectively and can save time and money. Verdant Vessels were sphere-shaped pots with spouts on top that would stick out of the ground once you buried them. Once you put them in the ground, you fill them with water and it slowly seeps out of the pots because they’ve been fire-blasted to the point they were porous. You would then refill the pots every one to two days based on weather conditions and other events.”

Other businesses developed for last semester’s class and the amounts contributed to area organizations were:

≤ NMU Campus Couture affordable jewelry, $706 to Delta Animal Shelter

≤ Sprout Box, a gardening and planting box, $572 to BOTIQA

≤ Nutri-paws organic and healthy dog treats, $305 to Room at the Inn

≤ University Detail car detailing enterprise, $284 to Little Brothers/Friends of the Elderly