Silk and Pearls

In China it is an established practice to integrate silkworm growing and fishponds. They feed the fish wormpoo, mulberries, and larva. Apparently it is a great system with the pond right next to the worm room and they just toss stuff in. Anyway I found that intriguing and have not heard anyone mention it. Can Sericulture ever be a viable system in America and can silkworms be integrated with aquatic systems in some way where silk would be more of a secondary product if the focus was growing them for fish nutrient ect? I thought that was worth exploring. My apologies if it sounds crazy.
Also this guy in Tennessee is growing freshwater pearls. Theoretically it can be accomplished in any large body of moving freshwater. Looking for real estate I thought Cairo Illinois might me a cool place to try it if I end up buying land there. It doesn't seem terribly complicated. You would have to learn some mollusk surgery ect. But in China it seems primitive enough. They use plastic bottles as floats on the oyster baskets. I plan to contact the farmer in Tenn.; maybe try to work for him to satisfy my curiosity. Its so interesting that literally no one else in this country does that, and you could produce such fine things as silk and pearls yourself. I believe he is doing very well. Could this be sort of franchised in some way where a kit could be made and people could do it on a micro scale. So many questions. Again, not terribly serious just thinking of this is fun.

Very neat! We just bought property up a slough and I am considering oyster (mollusk not fungi...wait! maybe fungi too) cultivation along the shore. The freshwater input would be much higher in the winter due to increases in the rain and creek levels so they may not be able to reproduce but I think it will be fun to try; even if they are just surviving they could be pulling contaminants out of the runoff from agriculture in our watershed.