- Cultivating pearls is the art of artificially inducing pearl growth in mollusks. It has been practiced by the Chinese for centuries. However it was not a common process until the 1900s. A pearl shortage caused an increase in the sale of cultivated pearls and they were gradually accepted as a replacement for natural pearls. They are produced on pearl farms, mainly in China, Japan, Australia and the USA.
- First, the oysters are harvested and placed in new tanks to allow them to acclimatize to their new environment. Once that has occurred, trained technicians will open the oysters and implant with them with nuclei, usually made out of North American mussels and a mantle from another oyster, which will secrete the necre that will form the outside of the new pearl. Then the oyster is placed in a sheltered tank. The oysters are harvested 10 months to 3 years later, in June and September. By then, nacre has formed around the bead to make the pearl. They are taken out by technicians in oyster farms and sorted by size and color for sale.
- The pearl's color is identical to the color of the nacreous shell lining. Therefore, black pearls are cultivated inside mollusks with linings that match the black pearl color. The oysters can be reseeded with new pearls up to 4 times.
