Pearl Education 101
Cultivation
Pearls are produced naturally in the body of salt and freshwater mollusks, such as oysters and mussels. When these animals sense an irritant, such as a grain of sand, they produce a soft coating of calcium carbonate substance around it. The result is a pearl. Because perfectly round, naturally produced pearls are so rare, a process known as cultivation was developed by Kokichi Mikimoto in the early 1900s. A small bead of polished shell, the nucleus, is used as an irritant and delicately inserted into the mantle of a mollusk. It takes approximately 20-24 months of intensive husbandry to cultivate a saltwater pearl and somewhat less time to cultivate freshwater pearls. The harvest usually takes place during the months of June and September.