Harvest of Tahitian pearls: the re-graft

June 12th 2008

This week we are harvesting the pearls that were grafted 18 months ago. For this, Yo and Aymeric are working hardly.

It's not just about opening the oysters and taking the pearls. Indeed, if the pearl is beautiful and the oyster is in good health, it's possible to replace the pearl harvested by another nucleus of same size. Like this, we are able to produce a second pearl of greater size.
This is called the re-graft operation, it is operated on about half of the oysters.