The entire process of pearl farming involves grafting of the pearl mollusks. After nucleation and harvesting, the cultured pearls are produced. Several years of hard work is involved in cultivation of freshwater cultured pearls. Though it looks like a cumbersome process in the beginning, but turns out to be a rewarding process at the end.
Contemporary methods adopted for pearl farming
Obtaining oysters
This is the first step towards pearl production process. In this step, oysters are obtained which are then nucleated. For breeding of oysters requires a pearl farmer to gather sperm and oyster egg from existing pearl-cultivating oyster on the farm. With the help of the sperm, egg gets fertilized and a new oyster larvae generation is formed.
Raising Freshwater Oysters
Larvae are made to float in the water which after a month’s time, gets transformed into baby oysters. Once this happens, they are taken to a different nursery on the farm. After caring for one year, they develop in large size so as to get nucleated. Click here to know more about processing of freshwater pearls.
Oyster Nucleation
Nucleation process is performed by implanting of a foreign element into the oyster. This irritation is in the oyster, due to which it secretes nacre to efficiently cover the element. This entire procedure leads to the formation of the pearl.
Mussel Grafting and Pearl Harvesting
At the time of freshwater mussel grafting, a section of mantle tissue gets inserted in the mussel’s mantle of the host. After performing the nucleation process, the oyster gets some weeks to get recovered from the surgery. Now, the oysters get placed in cages and taken to the oyster bed to develop pearls.
Once the pearls get properly developed, they are then harvested. For this process, they are taken from the oyster, cleaned, dried and then sorted into separate categories. After these procedures are done, freshwater cultured pearls become ready to be sold on the market to pearl jewelers, dealers and manufacturers.
Conclusion
So, we can see there are several steps involved in the process of cultivation of freshwater pearls. Production of these pearls involves both technique and luck. By performing all the steps in a sequential manner with the use of best technology equipment will result in lustrous freshwater pearls.
