Scientists from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) in Boca Raton have developed the first technique to produce beaded (nucleated) and non-beaded cultured pearls from the queen conch. Nucleated cultured pearls are produced by inserting a piece of mantle tissue from a donor mollusk and a nucleus, usually a spherical piece of shell, into the body of a recipient mollusk. Non-nucleated pearls are produced by grafting only a piece or pieces of mantle tissue, and no bead is inserted. The proprietary seeding techniques developed at HBOI successfully coaxed pearls that would be extremely rare if they occurred naturally. Ordinarily, it takes opening about 10,000 queen conch to find one conch pearl, and only one in 100 of those finds would be of gem quality, according to the university. The discovery offers a unique opportunity to introduce a new gem to the industry.<\/p>\n
For more than 25 years, scientists have attempted to culture pearls from the queen conch (Strombus gigas)<\/em>. In less than two years of research and experimentation, HBOI researchers Hector Acosta-Salmon, PhD, and Megan Davis, PhD, produced more than 200 cultured pearls using two seeding techniques. One was a modification of the conventional technique used to produce cultured pearls in freshwater mussels, and the other was a modification of the conventional technique used in marine pearl oysters. “Perhaps the most significant outcome from our research is that the technique we have developed does not require sacrificing the conch in the process,” Davis says. “The 100% survival rate of queen conch after seeding and the fact that it will produce another pearl after the first pearl is harvested will make this culturing process more efficient and environmentally sustainable for commercial application.”<\/p>\n