The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Daily Spectrum, St. George, Utah, USA, page 14, May 29, 1983.
See the case file here.
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SAN DIEGO (UPI) -- The famous Mexican farmer is growing his giant vegetables again after a three-year hiatus, and his secret formula is out - sun, water and soil combined with a touch of bioelectricmagnetism and a dash of hocus pocus.
Jose Carmen Garcia of Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, Mexico became the marvel of his marketplace in the late 1970's with 10-pound onions, palm fron-sized collard greens and the like.
A wandering San Diego police information officer Bill Robinson, happened upon Garcia and wrote an illustrated copyrighted story in San Diego Home and Garden magazine, November 1979.
A briefly skeptical UPI reporter hefted an 11-pound onion (which Robinson kept in his freezer to this day), got official confirmation from the Mexican Agriculture Ministry that Garcia had won a growing contest against Ministry agronomists in 1978, and wrote a dispatch that brought Garcia instant world fame.
Robinson and this UPI reporter visited Garcia in May 1981 and found (1) no giant vegetable and (2) Garcia grousing about drought and complaining of interruptions by would-be green thumbs from all over the world vainly seeking to learn his secret.
"The way to grow giant vegetables has been put in a safe place for the benefit of humanity," he said then, disclosing that the chosen depository was the Rosicrucian Order, a mystical, world-side educational organization based in San Jose, Calif.
He shrugged off as intended spoof his account to Robinson that the formula had been given him by a stranger who claimed he got it from extra-terrestrial visitors.
The probers met Garcia's partner in the erstwhile miracle farm, Oscar Arredondo, owner of a photography studio in town. But don't ask about the formula, he said, the Rosicrucians would take of that to feed all mankind.
There ensued an annual harvest season ritual of phone calls from San Diego to he quaint village nestled among volcano craters: "Arredondo, any giant vegetables this year?" "No, perhaps next."
So it was in 1981, 1982.
Voilà! 1983: "We have cabbages that weigh about 25 kilos (over 50 pounds) and measure a meter across," Arredondo exulted. "I shall send you a photograph."
He did and it was.
Kristie Knutson, public relation director for the Rosicrucian Order, says the organization has now had time to analyze Garcia's formula.
"We conducted agricultural experiments based on the formula of Garcia and Arredondo with some success, she said. "We got larger than average vegetables, but the nutritional analysis was negative, too fibrous a quality."
And the formula?
"Quite frankly, some superstition was involved, but mixed up in that were some scientific processes including bioelectricmagnetic fields which Rosicrucians and others have been studying for many years.
"There are other variables, lunar cycles and so on, but basically you hold the seed in your hand. By certain deep breathing you can possibly change the bioelectromagnetic field of an object. Our research on this right now centers on the healing of damaged tissue," she said.
[Photo caption:] VALLE DE SANTIAGO, Mexico - Oscar Arredondo, farming partner of Jose Garcia, displays a giant cabbage grown on the farm.
