Maynard Murray, M.D., for over 40 years was a practicing physician and an enthusiastic hydroponic ("sea-ponic") gardener, growing vegetables in fertilizer water instead of soil. His studies showed that our soils are deficient in many trace minerals found in the oceans. His studies and observations are recorded in his book, Sea Energy Agriculture: Perfect Natural Nutrition?

Dr. Murray discovered that salts from the sea, when used in proper dilution, stimulated plant growth, increased production, and resulted in better-tasting fruits and vegetables. Don Jansen who has taken over Dr. Murray’s project, continues to get excellent results by adding sea salts to the water in his four-acre "seaponic" gardens. He also uses Dan Carlson’s Sonic Bloom system of high-frequency sound and plant nutrient sprays (mentioned in earlier newsletters) and is enthusiastic about the results. For example, commercial crates designed to hold 20 heads of Romaine lettuce can contain only 8 of those grown by Carlson’s system. Jansen has had visitors from many places come to observe; he was invited to Jordan last summer to share his experience with King Hussein and some of his agricultural specialists. In the note accompanying Murray’s book, Jansen wrote: ". . . growing vegetables in ocean water is the future which I believe is the only hope for the world’s health."

The article about Dr. Murray in M.D. Magazine quotes him: ". . . the human race is very much what it eats, and if we would pay a bit more attention to the quality of what goes into our mouths, we might be able to find some solutions to two of mankind’s more pressing health problems – cancer and arteriosclerosis." Years of investigation had convinced him that there was a relationship between nutrient intake and the state of health. Sea life, he found, did not suffer from cancer, hardening of the arteries, and arthritis. Over twenty years, he examined the arterial systems of sea mammals – autopsying 50 and 60-year-old whales. He consistently found them to have the arterial systems of newborn calves. Freshwater trout, he found, develop cancer of the liver while their saltwater brethren do not. This led him to experiment with seaponic gardening, adding sea salt, which contains all 92 non-radioactive trace elements. For the next three decades, the Murray family had fresh produce all the year round.

A first Dr. Murray did his hydroponic gardening in the basement of his home in Chicago. In 1958 he moved to Florida to develop a 4-acre tract with 187 beds. Jansen, who had owned a 2,500-acre wheat farm in Nebraska, became interested in Murray’s project and joined him in Florida, eventually taking over the entire operation. Jansen still has 800 acres in Nebraska.

A paper by Jansen mentions the work of Dr. Albrecht at the University of Missouri, pointing out that grains, fruits, and vegetables, whether nutritious or depleted, can have the same outward appearance. Animals, however, known which cornstalks were grown in ocean crystals and which were grown on depleted soils. He writes that Dr. Murray found that his "ocean-grown" tomatoes had approximately 56-58 elements in them; he never found a grocery-store tomato with even 20.

The amount of poisons sprayed on our vegetables is astounding, he writes; he tells about a Florida grower who claimed he could not produce vegetables unless he used 7 or 8 major insecticides and herbicides every other day. Every week he alternated the combinations so that the insects would not adapt and become immune to the sprays.

Jansen commends those who are concerned with "organically grown" food, but points out that this is only a step away from poisoning ourselves. For good health, total nutrition is needed; "one cannot purchase fertilizers today with 60 or 70 elements in them. Only the ocean holds this kind of plant nutrition in balance."

Dr. Murray found it expensive to haul ocean water from the gulfshore to his gardens. He located a beach in Mexico where the tides swept seawater into a lakebed where it was subsequently dried by the sun. He coined the term "sea solids" for these deposits and found their elements close in proportion and ratio to those of ocean chemicals.

Jansen and his wife Christine hope their project will get enough attention so others will join in producing more nutritious food for mankind.

-- New Frontiers Center, Spring, Summer 1986

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