Caitlin
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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Study growing pearls in Tech's Duck Pond
A graduate student is turning an endangered species into a pearl-producing moneymaker.
By Tim Thornton
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv\26780.html also picked up by:
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783849065&path=!news&s=1045855934842
Mussels coaxed to try for pearls
A Virginia Tech grad student is attempting to get purple pearls
The Associated Press Jul 15, 2005
BLACKSBURG -- A Virginia Tech graduate student thinks she may have found a way to turn an endangered mussel into a potentially profitable pearl producer.
Hua Dan has established the pink heelsplitter mussel in Virginia Tech's Duck Pond, among other places. The mussel is large enough to grow 10 to 15 pearls at a time. But its purple shell color is what really piques Hua's interest because the mussel should produce purple pearls.
"Colorful pearls are much more expensive because they are very rare," Hua said.
Hua, 39, has coaxed mussels into producing pearls of various shapes, flat pearls and pearls with designs molded into them -- all by putting tiny pieces of shell and other irritants between mussels and their shells.
Soft cover formed
The mussels slowly form a soft cover over the intruding material to reduce the irritation, and gradually the substance hardens into a pearl.
Pearls harvested just before winter have the brightest luster, because the mussel's and pearl's growth slows as water temperature rises. But it takes at least three growing seasons to get to that point.
Hua has studied mussels' pearl-making abilities for China's Freshwater Fisheries Research Center for 20 years. Her interest in such things began when she was a child, playing in the canal that runs from the Yangtze River through her hometown of Wuxi.
"When I was a child, the water [was] so good," Hua said. "But right now you cannot go to the river."
Hua began her professional career working with fish. She got involved with mussels while working with a fish farmer who also grew pearls.
Practice not uncommon
It's not uncommon to keep pearl-making mussels in commercial fish ponds. Not only does it produce two cash crops in one place, the mussels help keep the pond's water clean.
Less than 10 percent of the pearls produced by Chinese farmers were of ornamental quality, Hua said. The rest were ground into pearl powder, which is used in medicines. Hua helped develop a growing process that more than doubled the number of ornamental pearls farmers produced.
Hua also helped establish a pearl industry in Bangladesh while working for the World Bank's Agriculture Research Management Project.
For the past two years, Hua has been studying mussels at Virginia Tech. She's growing pearls in a pond beside the university's freshwater mussel lab and in the campus Duck Pond. The mussels seem to thrive in both environments, Hua said.
Master's degree sought
Hua, who expects to earn her master's degree this summer, spent a semester at Tech as a visiting scholar in 1999. In 2002, she took some heelsplitters to China to test their pearl-making ability. For the first six months, she said, things went well. Then the heelsplitters began to die.
So Hua, with the approval of the Freshwater Fisheries Research Center, came back to Tech in 2003 to study the heelsplitters where they live.
Hua's husband and 11-year-old son came to visit her in February, the only time she's seen them since she began working on her master's degree.
In May, Richard Neves, Hua's adviser and a one of the nation's foremost authorities on raising mussels in captivity, presented a paper Hua co-wrote to the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society.
The paper promoted the prospect of establishing a pearl culture industry in the United States.
Hua may stay in the United States after she graduates to help American Indians do just that.
"That's why I'm here," Hua said. "Not just for publications or research, but I also focus on the economic values for the development of mussels."
Study growing pearls in Tech's Duck Pond
A graduate student is turning an endangered species into a pearl-producing moneymaker.
By Tim Thornton
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv\26780.html also picked up by:
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783849065&path=!news&s=1045855934842
Mussels coaxed to try for pearls
A Virginia Tech grad student is attempting to get purple pearls
The Associated Press Jul 15, 2005
BLACKSBURG -- A Virginia Tech graduate student thinks she may have found a way to turn an endangered mussel into a potentially profitable pearl producer.
Hua Dan has established the pink heelsplitter mussel in Virginia Tech's Duck Pond, among other places. The mussel is large enough to grow 10 to 15 pearls at a time. But its purple shell color is what really piques Hua's interest because the mussel should produce purple pearls.
"Colorful pearls are much more expensive because they are very rare," Hua said.
Hua, 39, has coaxed mussels into producing pearls of various shapes, flat pearls and pearls with designs molded into them -- all by putting tiny pieces of shell and other irritants between mussels and their shells.
Soft cover formed
The mussels slowly form a soft cover over the intruding material to reduce the irritation, and gradually the substance hardens into a pearl.
Pearls harvested just before winter have the brightest luster, because the mussel's and pearl's growth slows as water temperature rises. But it takes at least three growing seasons to get to that point.
Hua has studied mussels' pearl-making abilities for China's Freshwater Fisheries Research Center for 20 years. Her interest in such things began when she was a child, playing in the canal that runs from the Yangtze River through her hometown of Wuxi.
"When I was a child, the water [was] so good," Hua said. "But right now you cannot go to the river."
Hua began her professional career working with fish. She got involved with mussels while working with a fish farmer who also grew pearls.
Practice not uncommon
It's not uncommon to keep pearl-making mussels in commercial fish ponds. Not only does it produce two cash crops in one place, the mussels help keep the pond's water clean.
Less than 10 percent of the pearls produced by Chinese farmers were of ornamental quality, Hua said. The rest were ground into pearl powder, which is used in medicines. Hua helped develop a growing process that more than doubled the number of ornamental pearls farmers produced.
Hua also helped establish a pearl industry in Bangladesh while working for the World Bank's Agriculture Research Management Project.
For the past two years, Hua has been studying mussels at Virginia Tech. She's growing pearls in a pond beside the university's freshwater mussel lab and in the campus Duck Pond. The mussels seem to thrive in both environments, Hua said.
Master's degree sought
Hua, who expects to earn her master's degree this summer, spent a semester at Tech as a visiting scholar in 1999. In 2002, she took some heelsplitters to China to test their pearl-making ability. For the first six months, she said, things went well. Then the heelsplitters began to die.
So Hua, with the approval of the Freshwater Fisheries Research Center, came back to Tech in 2003 to study the heelsplitters where they live.
Hua's husband and 11-year-old son came to visit her in February, the only time she's seen them since she began working on her master's degree.
In May, Richard Neves, Hua's adviser and a one of the nation's foremost authorities on raising mussels in captivity, presented a paper Hua co-wrote to the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society.
The paper promoted the prospect of establishing a pearl culture industry in the United States.
Hua may stay in the United States after she graduates to help American Indians do just that.
"That's why I'm here," Hua said. "Not just for publications or research, but I also focus on the economic values for the development of mussels."
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