Seiichiro Uda
Seiichiro Uda (born 1893) was a Japan freshwater pearl cultivation pioneer. Neither a scientist nor a skilled surgeon (like Mikimoto 4 decades earlier, he hired people with those skills) he was an enterpreneur bent on leading the field with a new product, with access to resources needed to overcome numerous obstacles.
Uda hired Kazuhisa Yanase because he had met Yanase’s older brother in Brazil. Uda and a few others travelled extensively, acquired mussels wherever possible, and carried live specimens home, wrapped in wet newspapers in hand luggage. Breeders have experienced that mussels from distant habitats are usually incapable of interbreeding. For more detail, see page 6: hybrid Hieriopsys schlegeli mussels.
Uda attempted to establish fw pearl farms in several other countries including the US, but succeeded only in Japan. A big player in the field, his company succumbed after the 1980′s wipeout.
We are temporarily unable to locate a photograph of Seiichiro Uda. In this photo taken at Uda’s farm in the Lake Biwa area circa 1968, Kazuhisa Yanase (back to camera) and Harou Uda (Seiichiro’s nephew) harvest freshwater pearls, watched by Fusako Uda, Aloha Voll, and Frieda Voll.