The Truth About Sea Cucumber Farming, Don't Be Fooled by "Wild Sea Cucumber" Marketing

As sea cucumbers have become a widely popular health tonic, all kinds of sea cucumbers have also become a favorite gift exchanged between relatives and friends to show they care.

Sea cucumber merchants' marketing is also wildly varied, and some of it even amounts to "false advertising," which is why many uninformed consumers have been blinded by these claims and fallen for them.

Many merchants now claim in their advertising that their sea cucumbers are "wild sea cucumbers," but in fact this claim is incorrect. Only sea cucumbers grown entirely without any human intervention, completely naturally, can be called "purely wild sea cucumbers," and this kind of sea cucumber has basically disappeared due to overfishing and other reasons; even if any can be found, they can only be bought at sky-high prices.

At present, the domestic sea cucumbers sold on the Chinese market are basically all farmed sea cucumbers, and those marketed as "wild sea cucumbers" are generally "bottom-sown sea cucumbers." Bottom-sown sea cucumbers refer to hatchery seedlings being released into sea areas with suitable environmental conditions so that the sea cucumbers grow naturally; because the growing environment is essentially identical to that of wild sea cucumbers, their quality can rival that of purely wild sea cucumbers.

In fact, there are many ways to farm sea cucumbers. Besides bottom sowing, there are also sea-enclosure farming, greenhouse farming and other methods. Sea cucumbers grown under these methods generally grow faster, which is conducive to human intervention.

In recent years, "northern sea cucumbers farmed in the south" has gradually become a major trend in sea cucumber farming - putting northern sea cucumbers with good appearance and thick flesh into the coastal waters of Fujian for farming. On one hand, this preserves the northern sea cucumber variety; on the other hand, it shortens the growth cycle and effectively reduces costs.

Like wild sea cucumbers, bottom-sown sea cucumbers have a relatively long farming cycle. The farmed sea cucumbers sold on the market, especially southern sea cucumbers, generally have a shorter cycle and can basically be sold in less than a year, while ordinary enclosure-farmed sea cucumbers have a growth cycle of generally 1-2 years, and bottom-sown sea cucumbers generally have a cycle of 3 years.

Generally speaking, the longer the age of a sea cucumber, the larger its size and the higher its nutritional value. However, the sea cucumber's own life cycle is generally about 10 years, and after exceeding a certain age, the sea cucumber will autolyze. Therefore, overemphasizing the "age" of sea cucumbers is also inadvisable, and there is generally an element of merchants' exaggerated marketing in it.