Psychedelic Mushrooms Get More, Stronger

At the beginning of this year, Julian Mattucci, also known as “God Ruler Myco,” was creating new generations of characters from others. Psilocybe subtropicalis the mushrooms he had bought online from a reputable supplier. He says he wasn’t “working for energy” but rather coming up with cleaner, stronger genetics to fix problems caused by continuous breeding—common in a field long dominated by novices. Breed too much, and the mushrooms can lack normal health, produce low yields, and sometimes have low vigor.

After three cycles of cultivation, the Atlanta-based mycologist who runs the mushroom development company Imperial Labs decided it was time to try what he had produced. The experienced psychonaut, was surprised. “It surprised me: I’ve never been hit by mushrooms like that,” said Matucci. He ate them freshly found in a dose of about 1.5 grams of dried mushrooms, which is far less than the amount usually needed to “break through” and have a significant trip. I knew they had to be really strong, because I couldn’t get out of bed for about three or four hours. The first hour or two felt like a DMT experience. “

It’s the kind of tough mushroom trip that people keep reporting. New cultivation techniques make inspired mushrooms stronger, and the extra-strong varieties kick in faster and last longer—even if you eat just a fraction of what you would with other varieties. Subsequent tests showed that one batch of Mattucci’s mushrooms contained about 5 percent psychoactive alkaloids, which had never been heard of. Psilocybe type. In general, mushrooms contain 1 percent of these psychoactive compounds, although species vary Psilocybe azurescens usually stronger, and some types inside Panaeolus the type is even stronger.

Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, which are one of the most commonly eaten species, are among the most domesticated species due to the imperfect methods used by hobby farmers, who have spread over the decades since the first spore prints returned from the Amazon in the early 1970s, courtesy of the McKenna brothers. But as the mushroom growing industry goes underground and becomes somewhat more professional—although the ban on psilocybin continues worldwide—many mycologists are using sophisticated breeding techniques to improve the genetic integrity of the fungus and improve potency, which can be extreme and lost among the offspring. .

“I would argue that the current Mount Everest has great potential; milligrams per gram of biomass,” said Ian Bollinger, founder of the Center for Mycological Analytics. “That’s a mountain people are going to climb whether we tell them or not.” Matucci, however, insists that finding a strong brand was not his goal. He says: “I was lucky.

Farmers use genetic sequencing and combine plants from distant relatives to hunt for improvements, as well as new aesthetic innovations. Advances in technology have allowed fungal cells to be used more easily during breeding, and advances in chromatographic potency testing have enabled growers to dial in which mutations lead to more potent mushrooms, which can be sold to consumers for more than $10 a gram more. . The advent of such methods means that the era of the amateur “bro science” in psychedelic mycology is over, Mattucci said. The age of ignorant and anecdote-driven science is giving way to deep and complex knowledge-driven farming of science-and-mycology. “This is just the beginning” of superpowers, Matucci said, “and it’s going to be crazy over the next decade.”