In the Big Idea Summit organised by Bhanushali Chamber of Commerece, Ghatkopar, Mauktika Pearl Farming with innovator team comprising Mr Chinmaya Saboo from Odisha and Ms Pooja Mange from Nasik got the prestigious award of the Best Innovative Startup. The technique can be used to Cultivate Pearls, which can be a very lucrative enterprise….
Background
The world was standstill… in lockdown… Everything shut… this was the time when a bright idea was unfolding… Chinmaya Saboo from Odisha and Pooja Mange from Maharashtra started a venture.. very new… very innovative… The Pearl Farming…
Chinmay perceived the idea… got deeper. He started getting training to do the innovative venture of Cultivating Perals.. The idea is different… He started culturing the Mussels to induce Pearls in them… and as always the same happened as it happens with any new venture… Chinmay started with 20000 mussels.. but alas… most of the mussels died…
Plan
Without giving up the idea Chinmay started afresh… Now he followed the scientific path… Started reading a lot of research papers on Pearl Cultivation… read a lot of research papers and came up with a very innovative novel culturing method for mussels…Now he got the confidence of growing the Pearls… mortality subsided… here he introduced a very novel concept of Designing Pearls… he collaborated with Pooja Mange from Nashik… and started on his own…Mauktika Pearl Farming started… a New venture was born…
A powerful game-changing plan for doing pearl farm with new ways and using mother of pearl and beautiful shapes was conceptualized. The water zones were identified where those mussels for the Pearls were grown… The conducive parameters that comply the pearl growing were identified… Along with the natural sites the pearl farming was also attempted in artificial tanks.
Innovation
The exhaustive study was done on which species should be grown to give the best results.. The mussel species… Lamellidens marginalis collected from the hatcheries was found to be best suitable for Pearl Culture… mussels were subjected to selective breeding… proper medicines were administered… The mussels were maintained for seven days…
Lamellidens belongs to the class Pelecypoda phylum Mollusca. Fresh water mussels live in ponds, lakes, slow moving streams all over the world. The lamellidens are distributed throughout Indian subcontinent. Pearls of small sizes have been reported from lamellidens
Methodology
The critical step of inducing the Pearl was done by initiating the surgery… the process of surgery is performed by implanting the nucleus on both sides…the method of surgery that is followed in India is mostly the mantle cavity surgery which allows the mussels to handle the stress and get the best
pearls … the mortality is just around 10%… after the surgery the mussels are observed for a period of 7 days preventing bacterial infection and for healing the wound…
The mussels are kept in ponds of tanks… the nutritional sources like calcium and proteins are supplied to the culture… this helps in increasing the lustre and quality of the pearls formed…The mussels are now maintained for a period of 15 to 18 months to get the best pearls… The pearls are harvested with quality parameters like weight and lustre…
Big Idea
Chinmay Saboo and Pooja Mange has developed this Novel Technology…The Big Idea… The Pearl Farming and Cultivation is very lucrative as it fetches a very good return.. If the proper method is followed Pearl Culture is a prospective enterprise….
-Team ScienceNow
