Using ocean or sea minerals is something new that producers in Morton and Burleigh counties are trying on their soils.
“The theory is that if you can get your soils balanced (with sea minerals), you can put that back into the crops and then the crops get back to us,” said Dave Bauer, who farms/ranches with his dad, Glenn, and brother, Steve. He has cattle and follows a diversified grazing program.
Bauer said he first heard about using these sea minerals from Lance Gartner, who regeneratively ranches near Glen Ullin, N.D., and is the 2022-23 Leopold Conservation Award winner.
“Lance Gartner is the one that first talked to us about it and the ocean minerals are something you hear of from Redmond Salt out of Utah and Kansas Grey out of Kansas, which are ancient sea beds, and then another company called Sea-90,” Bauer said.
Bauer pointed out that Sea-90 dehydrates the sea water and then they harvest it. The company states that Sea-90 restores soil fertility, enhances the nutrient density of plants and pastures, and improves the health and vitality of animals.
“Sea-90 has these huge beds on the Baja Peninsula, and they flood these fields with sea water when the tide comes up. Then they hold it off, and since it’s so hot down there, it evaporates off. Then they harvest that and then that’s the sea salts,” he said. “There’s supposed to be 90 or 92 different minerals in that.”
The theory behind it is that 10,000 plus years ago the entire planet was covered by sea water, and as that went away, all those minerals and nutrients were left in the soil profile.
“As we have tilled things up and as erosion has gone along, it has washed that back down to the sea. In the sea there’s an exact balance of these 92 different minerals, and if it gets out of balance, that settles out and goes into the sea floor,” Bauer said. “As that water is perfectly balanced no matter where you are in the oceans and the entire world, it’s exactly the same balance.”
That balance is the balance that’s in a healthy animal’s blood also, he said.
Gartner said he found out about sea minerals a couple of years ago and was fascinated by the history revolving around it. He read about the minerals in a book by Dr. Maynard Murray. Murray calls the sea minerals the beginnings of “Sea Energy Agriculture.”
“The Navy sampled every ocean in the world after World War II and found that every ocean has the exact same balance – what Dr. Maynard Murray calls its ‘perfect balance.’ Dr. Murray did a lot of research on applying sea solids to land,” Gartner said.
Murray then analyzed the mineral composition of seawater and found more than 90 water-soluble elements present in a constant proportional balance.
Gartner explained that producers can take the sea salt and put it out as free choice mineral for cattle.
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“Twenty percent is available to the cattle – the nutrients in that sea salt. If you make a mineral water out of it and give it to your cattle through the water tank, it now becomes 50 percent available to the animal,” he said. “But if you can put it on the ground and have the plant take it up through the grass, and the animal gets it through the plant, it now becomes like 90 percent available to the animal, so we can do things with healthy animals.”
Gartner pointed out that everyone in production agriculture needs to “raise healthy, nutrient-dense food, whether it’s for animals or for ourselves.”
Murray conducted extensive agricultural research trials during a 30-year period. In his initial greenhouse experiments, he utilized the highest quality sea water collected by the U.S. Navy three miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. As a result of extensive research, he discovered that the soil microbiological activity, plant growth, and development is enhanced when the concentration of sodium chloride in seawater derived Sea-90 is applied at specific rates and in specific dilutions.
“The ancient Greeks defeated their enemies by sterilizing their enemy’s soil with salt, but that was white salt. The sea salt is nutrient-rich and it’s in perfect balance. And so, it brings balance to your soil. It actually helps your plants and it actually helps your soils,” Gartner said.
This year, Gartner is experimenting by adding 100 pounds per acre of sea minerals to his grass.
“You can make a mineral water out of it and fully feed your plants with it. We experimented with some of that last year,” he said.
The Gartners put minerals on 15 acres of a 60-acre paddock at the far end of a water tank.
“We came out two days later, put the cows out, and there was no grazing next to the water tank, which was unheard of. As we’re driving through the paddock, we hit an absolute line and it just dropped five inches in the height of the plants,” he said. “The cows took five inches off of it where we foliar-fed that sea salt two and a half weeks earlier before they grazed the rest of the paddock.”
Their cows usually get about 7-8 ounces per head per day of salt, so they are not salt-starved.
“There is something about that foliar feeding in that grass that they went for that grass before the rest of the paddock, so there’s something to this about nutrient-rich soils, getting it into the soil up into the plants,” he said.
The Gartners haven’t been applying it long enough to see if there is a yield increase.
“We are still in the early stages of learning, but it’s fun and exciting and we’re having a great time with it,” he concluded.
Photo: David Bauer and Lance Gartner, right, talk to producers about sea minerals.
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