COLLEGE STATION — Christmas gift selection in the near future might not be so hard for guys. What woman wouldnt want a string of genuine Texas pearls?
If researchers and potential producers who are backing them are right, the gem could rise from the murky waters that feed into Lake Anahuac near Houston to jewelry stores across Texas and the nation, according to Dr. Leonard DiMichele, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station fisheries researcher.
DiMichele is heading a research effort to develop a cultured pearl industry from mussels found in Texas waters.
Currently, Japanese and other Asian markets have a firm grasp on the cultured pearl industry though the United States literally shells it to them, he said. Almost all of the nuclei, or shell substance that is introduced into the mussels or oysters to initiate pearl formation, is produced in the United States, then shipped to the Asian countries to produce pearls that are sent back to the U.S. retail jewelry market.
“The southeastern United States has a large number of fresh water mussel species with thick shells,” said DiMichele, referring to the nuclei industry. “There are other species of mussels in other parts of the world, but most have been exploited to the point of not being viable.
“You can liken the economy of what we are doing now to Colonial America you produce the raw material and ship it overseas for the manufacturing, and then it gets sold back to you,” DiMichele added. “That is never as good an economic arrangement as doing the manufacturing yourself.”
Johnny Pillars of J&F Supply in Pioneer, La., agrees. His company markets the nuclei overseas. Pillars would like to have a new U.S. market and even his own pearl farm. He said it is commonly accepted that freshwater pearls in the United States among the most valuable.
“Well-known gemologists say the American freshwater pearl has no equal,” Pillars said. “We have been blessed with a better quality animal, and that is why U.S. shell is used around the world to make pearls.”
He expects the U.S. pearl farms to become a multi-million-dollar industry. “Seventy percent of the pearls sold worldwide are sold in the United States,” he noted.
Pillars noted that pearl beds can produce widely varying quality from the pearls that formed a 28-pearl string that sold for $1.8 million in New York City to the $5 string of pearls in a discount store.
“It’s up to the animal to produce gem quality,” Pillars said, noting that an animal that produces a gem quality stone first will produce an even better one the next time, and may produce as many as five pearls over its lifetime.
There is one U.S. company already producing freshwater pearls, American Shell Co. in Tennessee, but their techniques were self-developed and kept as a trade secret. DiMichele not only wants to find a way to culture freshwater pearls, he wants to write papers about it and let anyone who is interested know.
I foresee an industry in the United States, and Texas ought to be wonderful for it,” he said. Mussels, even those of the same species, may produce different colored nacres the substance that they secrete around the nuclei depending on the environment. “There has never been any evidence that gem quality pearls can meet the saturation level on the retail market.”
DiMichele noted that all pearls developed are not gem quality, so some of the product might be marketed in lower-cost department stores, which could drive those prices down.
“But you could put a lot of pearl farms in and the number of gem quality pearls produced would be few,” he said. “There is a lot of marketing research to do.”
Making money sounded good to producers around Lake Anahuac, where the navigation district had been looking for something to provide an alternative for the fledgling rice industry. They already have an infrastructure of water delivery that might be diverted for pearl production if DiMicheles project is successful. The Liberty-Chambers County Navigation District was hopeful enough to put $8,300 towards the project.
Others along the Gulf Coast also believe the effort is viable. A Pearl Association of the Americas was formed in Oxford, Miss., to include researchers and shell producers for continuing dialogue as the effort evolves.
“Texas farmers can’t compete against Alabama farmers because they are raising different animals,” Pillars explained. “They produce from different kinds of animals, so they get a variety of pearls. So the industry will benefit overall if pearl farmers from the different areas share the techniques they learn with each other.”
As for the Texas project, DiMichele and implantation technician Lori King went diving in search of mussels along the muddy bottoms of Lake Anahuac. They found three types washboards, which are most desired for producing white pearls, and the pocketbooks and pimplebacks, which might be used in the research to determine whether they can make desirable pearls even if different colored.
He said that many species of mussels are known to exist in Texas waters, so the industry would not be restricted to the southeast part of the state. He said one of the most valuable Texas native is the Tampico pearly mussel that produces pink to flame red pearls. It can be found all along the Colorado River drainage basin and in Lake Buchanan. In fact, DiMichele’s research team is starting a project in January at Lake Buchanan with the Tampico mussel, and recently collected about 50 for the lab work.
“For cultured pearls, the infrastructure would have to be developed from the ground up,” DiMichele said. “So that would mean collection in the area in which you expect to farm, and then there are several culture methods you could use to do them depending on location conditions.”
DiMichele hopes his research will yield how the pearl sac grows, how to increase the yield of gem quality pearls and how to speed up the development. Currently in the United States, it takes about two years to harvest a pearl.
“We were talking about the possibility in Texas of cutting that time down some because the winters are not as severe, so the growing season is longer,” he explained. “I think that a U.S. cultured pearl industry is going to happen for sure. It is an industry for the new century.”
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