These
days cultured pearls are the part of every woman’s
jewelry. They have become the fundamental part of jewelry
giving birth to eye-catching designs. However you may be
surprised to know that almost all Pearl necklace made from
original natural pearls are rarely found in the open
market today. Almost all pearls sold today are cultured
pearls. Farmers cultivate them. With the beginning of 20th
century many inventors discovered techniques of pearl
cultivation. One very famous inventors in the field of
pearl cultivation is Mikimoto. Cultured pearls have better
quality because human farming uses selective measures,
resulting in the most beautiful pearls one can find.
Cultivation of cultured pearls is done with special care
and technique. Various methods are used to cultivate them.
Like planting a nucleus in wild oysters, jump-starting the
natural process by implanting a tiny piece of pearl mantle
inside the oyster, or using beads designed to create a
larger pearl in the shortest period of time and help to
control its shape. The live pearl oysters are opened
gently, then a small polished shell bead and piece of
mantle tissue is implanted in it. The shell bead is the
nucleus around which the oyster secretes (nacre) layer
after layer, which forms the pearl.. This process is time
consuming. After all care and precautions are taken, only
about five percent of the oysters survive extreme weather
and predators for long to yield gem quality pearls.
Cultured pearls can be from saltwater or freshwater
mollusks. Generally people use the term cultured pearls to
refer only to pearls produced from saltwater oysters. But
the process of making fresh water pearls is the same.
Cultured Saltwater Pearls
Cultured saltwater pearls are cultivated in the areas,
which have the right water temperature, and sufficient
nutrition for the oysters. The South Sea area is
responsible for producing the world's largest and finest
saltwater cultured pearls. The area extends from Burma and
the Gulf of Thailand through the Sulu Sea of the
Philippines, Malaysia, the Indonesian Arafura Sea and
north-west Australia. It continues into the Cook Islands,
eastward through Tahiti to the Tuamotu Archipelago and the
Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. Japan has been the
lading produce of cultured pearls for many years. Japanese
saltwater cultured pearls come from the Akoya oyster.
These oysters are also used in China for pearl production.
Japanese Akoya pearls are the most difficult to grow
because of low survival rates of the Akoya oysters. A
production of less than 5% of pearl production, as
compared to oysters implanted, is considered as good
quality crop.
Cultured Freshwater Pearls
Freshwater pearls originate from freshwater oysters. The
countries producing freshwater pearls are Japan, US, and
China. China is an ancient source of freshwater pearls and
has grown to be one of the largest producer of cultured
freshwater pearls. The most famous type of freshwater
cultured pearls is the Biwa pearl, which originate from
Japan’s largest fresh water lake Biwa.
