Our fourth guy, Laggoon Island pearls is doing really strange kinds of pearls. Read his posts and then ask him questions. He is in Canada may not be in commercial production yet, but not sure. He has a lot of info about his habitats and photos. He knows a lot about the odd pearls, too.
The farm at Lagoon Island is still very much experimental, although I've enjoyed recent successes which have lead to a "retooling" of the operation. Changing horses in mid stream will invariably hold you back a few years on top of your previous years of research and development.
A wine vintner told me many years ago, "There are a thousand decisions in every bottle of wine" The same can be said about pearl farming, as they both are heavily dependant upon a combination of fluctuating evironmental conditions and good husbandry.
Before getting down to brass tacks on pearl farming itself, it's probably wise to clarify your own vision before proceeding with anything else. Probably the singlemost important thing is identifying your target species. Harvesting wild stocks require elaborate environmental and biomass assessments to convince the powers-that-be that no harm will come whether by overfishing or introducing invasive species.
You cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear, so it's imperative your species produce pearls have an extracrystalline structure suitable and stable enough for a very competitive marketplace and highly discerning consumer.
Oceanography and limnology are two very different things. While there are similarities, they are technically worlds apart. Saltwater pearls are low volume, high value while FWPs are high volume, low value products. The latter would require hundreds if not thousands of acres of aquatic resources to even remotely begin to compete with China. Then of course, marine waterfront doesn't come cheap either, not to mention the infrigement upon other users.
Actually, when people ask me how good a business this is I have to say: I love doing this, it is a good business and feel great about producing this beautiful gem...but selling "Tacos de Carne Asada" on a "Taco Stand" will land you more money and give you less worries (at least in Mexico). In the end, you do it because you are more stubborn than bright.
Douglas is being humble and humorous. He's every bit as masterful as he is dug in, perhaps moreso, afterall he's successfully producing some of the most beautiful pearls on the planet.
Our operations are markedly different from one another, but one thing we share is our adaptability to make do with available resources and local knowledge. Even in other parts of the world where pearl farming is commonplace, the nuances of the day to day operations can be quite different for a whole host of reasons.
I know next to nothing about marine biology in Florida waters, but a clam is a clam is a clam where the world's mollusks are concerned. You'll be dependant upon a little bit of information here and there, but at the end of the day it's entirely up to you to fill in the blanks to be successful.
If there was single piece of advice you ought to cling to, it's observation, speculation then replication.
I think it is important to note, since the page is in this thread, that the reasons given for improved quality are not correct. It is not the financial stability and longer culturing times that have increased the quality of China's freshwaters so substantially. It was the industry wide shift from Cristaria plicata to Hyriopsis cumingi, and the lowering of grafts on either valve to 12-16.
