Creston inventor claims to prolong plant life

By CONSTANCE SEE

for the Bigfork Eagle

A 71-year-old retired Army colonel who moved back home to Montana last fall says demand for his unique invention prevents his permanent retirement.

A gardener his whole life, even while deployed in the military, Gary "Corky" Corkins holds the patent for Wallo' Water, an 18-inch tall, green plastic wall divided into 18 vertical tubes. When filled with water, they can keep a plant warm during cold weather.

"I wanted to come here and retire, but my customers keep calling and won't let me," Corkins said. "We sell around the country, into Europe and to big companies like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and K-Mart."

Last week, at his new location in Creston, Corkins celebrated 26 years in the plant product business. He manufacturers and sells several million Wallo' Water devices each year.

Born in Hardin, raised in Sydney and Browning, Corkins went to work as a brakeman with the Great Northern Railway after high school in the 1950s. He moved to Whitefish in 1954, where he lived for four years until he was drafted.

When he retired from the service and moved to Utah, Corkins struggled with the problem of sudden early frosts taking his plants down just as they were about to be harvested, particularly tomatoes. Several prototypes later, the Wallo' Water was born.

"The third law of physics is, for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction," Corkins said. "As water cools off, it has to give off heat. When it freezes, instead of giving off one calorie per gram, it gives off 80. This wall will give off 1.8 million calories of heat when it freezes. We're guessing more than half of that goes inside to the plants."

Using the product, Corkins said customers were able to improve their normal yield two or three times, plant two months early, and start harvesting two months early. The device can be reused season after season. Corkins has photos of potato fields covered with plants surrounded by his water walls.

He said the product is so popular, several attempts have been made to steal the concept and produce a similar plant wall.

"We haven't had a challenge like that for three or four years," Corkins said. "They don't last very long. My customers called to tell me a guy was trying to sell them something like ours. One of my customers was located just one quarter of a mile away from him. They tried his, didn't like it and came back to us. A manufacturer in England said the same guy tried to steal his patented item, too, but those of us in the lawn-and-garden industry know each other and we talk."

Corkins' invention obtained a bit of fame when an astrophysicist from NASA named Janet Barth dressed up in a suit made of mini Wall-O-Waters as an example of an astronaut's need for protection from radiation. The photo made it into the National Geographic magazine almost six years ago.

For more information about the Wallo' Water, call Corkins at Mount Cordahl Produce in Creston, at 756-8303.