Status of marine pearl culture of India

The pearls produced by the Indian pearl oyster Pinctadafucata have been acclaimed globally as the Oriental Pearls. \nDuring the last five years, the Institute has made concerted efforts to upgrade pearl production methodology by \ndeveloping new techniques for pearl production through tissue cultured pearl at the Tuticorin Research Centre of \nCMFRI. Efforts were also made to produce large pearls (>6 mm), which are highly priced in the international market. \nThe technique for mabe pearls production has also been developed in P.fucata. The advances made in research and \ndevelopment of marine pearl culture in India with a note on the problems faced by the industry and the potential for \ndevelopment of pearl culture in India is presented in the paper.