Cultivators are turning to genetic sequencing and cellular-manipulation techniques to breed highly potent mushrooms—leaving some unprepared psychonauts in distress.
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Earlier this year, Julian Mattucci, also known as “God Emperor Myco,” was creating new generations of spores from some Psilocybe subtropicalis mushrooms that he had procured online from a popular supplier. He claims to have not been “working them for potency” but rather to arrive at a cleaner, more robust genetic structure to fix issues caused by sustained inbreeding—common in a field that has long been run by amateurs. Interbreed too much, and mushrooms can lack general health, produce lesser yields, and sometimes be lower strength.
After three cultivation cycles, the self-taught mycologist—who runs the Colorado-based psychedelic research company Imperial Labs—decided it was time to try what he had produced. An experienced psychonaut, he was astonished. “It floored me: I’ve never been hit like that by mushrooms,” Mattucci says. He consumed them fresh in a dose that would be equivalent to no more than 1.5 grams of the dried fungi, which is significantly below the amount generally required to “break through” and have a significant trip. “I knew that they had to be really powerful, because I couldn’t get out of my bed for about three or four hours. The first hour or two felt like a DMT experience.”
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It’s the type of super-strong mushroom trip that people are increasingly reporting. New cultivation methods are making psychedelic mushrooms stronger, and fiendishly potent varieties are kicking in faster and lasting longer—even if you eat only a fraction of what you would with another variety. Subsequent testing showed that one batch of Mattucci’s mushrooms contained almost 5 percent psychedelic alkaloids, which was once unheard of within the Psilocybe genus. Typically, mushrooms contain 1 percent of these psychoactive compounds, although species like Psilocybe azurescens are generally stronger, and some varieties within the Panaeolus genus are even more potent.
Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, one of the species most commonly consumed, are among the most heavily inbred due to the imperfect methods used by hobbyist cultivators, who have propagated them 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 scene steps out of the underground and professionalizes somewhat—even though psilocybin prohibition continues across most of the world—more and more mycologists are using informed breeding practices to enhance the fungi’s genetic integrity and improve potency, which can be a recessive trait and become lost within a lineage.
“I would argue the current Mount Everest is highest potency; milligrams per gram of biomass,” says Ian Bollinger, the founder of the Center for Mycological Analytics. “That is a mountain people are going to climb whether we tell them to or not.” Mattucci, though, stresses that finding a highly potent variety wasn’t his aim. “I got lucky,” he says.
Cultivators are using genetic sequencing and are hybridizing cultivars from ever more distant lineages to hunt for improvements, plus sheer aesthetic novelty. Technological advancements have allowed for fungal cells to more easily be manipulated during breeding, and developments in chromatographic potency testing enables growers to dial in on what alteration methods result in stronger mushrooms, which can be sold to consumers at prices in excess of $10 per gram more. The arrival of such methods means the era of amateur “bro science” in psychedelic mycology is over, Mattucci says. The age of uninformed tinkering and anecdote-driven science is giving way to cultivation driven by deeper and more complex scientific—and mycological—knowledge. “This is only the beginning” of super-strength potencies, Mattucci says, “and it’s going to be pretty insane over the next decade.”
One group that may stand to benefit are people who experience gastrointestinal issues from mushrooms, says Sam Gandy, an ecologist and independent psychedelics researcher who is conducting a survey on the variable psychedelic effects attributed to different varieties. Gandy notes that some people suffer unpleasant physical sensations, known as “body load” issues, when ingesting psilocybin mushrooms—particularly P. cubensis. “But testimonials suggest this varies with species and generally the more potent species seem to be smoother on the body,” he says. “At present it isn’t altogether clear why this is the case, but the more rapid release of psilocybin from less fungal matter may be something to do with it,” he says. Others report a better subjective quality of experience with higher strength mushrooms, Gandy adds.
However, the increasing availability of such super-strong mushrooms—coupled with a relative deficit of safe dosing instructions—could also lead people to accidentally consume more than they had intended, raising the risk of distressing trips. “Three and a half grams, when I was growing up, was considered what you needed to trip,” Reggie Harris, founder of Hyphae Labs, a potency-testing laboratory, told the Hyphae Leaks podcast last year. “Now, 0.7 grams is a full trip. Imagine, if I’m running around here thinking that three and a half grams of Panaeolus bisporus … is a full trip. You’re gonna see God.”
The Panaeolus genus of psilocybin mushrooms is one of several lesser-known taxonomic categories that are being explored as part of this cultivation trend. Some mushrooms of this type are naturally much stronger than those in the most well-known family, the Psilocybe genus, which contains such notorious varieties as Golden Teachers, a type of P. cubensis, and P. semilanceata, aka Liberty Caps, which can be found in the northern hemisphere during autumn. The exploration of Panaeolus’s potential is only just beginning. “We expect to see their potency improved three- or four-fold in cultivation, similarly to cubensis, and that work is currently underway,” says Mattucci.
white mushrooms growing in a lab
TTBVI mushrooms cultivated by GordoTek.Courtesy of GordoTek
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In 2022,GordoTek, an underground mycologist based in the US northeast, who goes by his pseudonym due to the illegality of his work and his desire to minimize hate mail, was searching for some little-known but particularly potent varieties of psilocybin mushrooms. He spoke to a collector of exotic species, known only as VL Centercoast, who had recently procured spores from a cultivar in the British Virgin Islands. VL had a suspicion that the variety—which had been named TTBVI after the tamarind tree under which it is said to have grown when it was discovered—was strong and he was curious to have the mushrooms checked out. “It germinated fast, and right from the get-go I felt this one is going to be interesting,” GordoTek recalls. “It has since won seven competitions for the most potent mushroom in the known world.” In one leading psilocybin-potency competition, the TTBVIs contained more than 5 percent of psychedelic alkaloids, making them stronger than any known mushroom.
GordoTek has created a dosing calculator to help increase awareness about how much of each mushroom variety is required for certain kinds of trip. “Somebody could easily take too much,” he says. “I try to go overboard in communicating, ‘Don’t ever take more than a gram of this.’” Still, people contact him saying they took 2 grams and had traumatic trips as a result. “I don’t know why people feel the need to overdo it,” he adds. “I’m always warning people, so I don’t feel like I bear too much responsibility, but I do feel bad for anybody who accidentally takes too much.”
The advent of these psilocybin cups—following in the footsteps of cannabis cups, which rate potency, smell, taste, and all sorts of other measurables—is, however, rewarding the victors of the race to create or procure unprecedentedly potent mushrooms. Most competitions occur privately without any festivities, but events like the Colorado Psychedelic Cup are steadily happening in the open. “The increasing popularity of mushrooms is buttressing a sense of one-upmanship, where people always want a more potent strain, and that’s what we saw with cannabis,” says mushroom industry commentator Dennis Walker.
The underground dispensaries and online vendors that are experiencing record levels of demand from consumers do usually offer a wide slate of mushrooms. But drugs journalist David Hillier says that he has noticed a decrease in the availability of “middle-ground” mushrooms such as Golden Teachers on Telegram marketplaces over the last six months. “It’s been mostly Albino Penis Envy and Jedi Mind Fuck, which are highly potent strains. Then there’s a big drop-off to low-strength strains like Cambodians,” he says. “Perhaps the market is now geared toward the more experienced psychonauts. There may also be a financial imperative to buy stronger strains, as this could give you more trips.” Yoshi Amano, the owner of mushroom-genetics supplier DinoSpores, says that “hardly anyone” is interested in growing generic cubensises. The majority of people appear to be primarily interested in albino mushrooms, in varieties that turn blue (which occurs when they are mishandled), “or stuff that’s highly potent,” he says.
Methods to enhance the potency of mushrooms using gene-editing technology have been subject to a patent application by at least one biotech company, Intima Science. “In some cases, the genetically modified fungi and other organisms comprises … up to 400 percent more psilocybin measured by dry weight of a fungus compared to a comparable control without genetic modification,” the document says.
Mushroom cultivator John Workman, the head of research at Sporeworks, which sells rare spores, created the Albino Penis Envy strain, which was previously considered by many as the strongest Psilocybe mushroom in common usage. He says that there must be an upper limit on total psilocybin, psilocin, and baeocystin (respectively the main and lesser-known psychedelic alkaloids within mushrooms) content that a mushroom can produce. “But I’m not sure what that would be, maybe 10 percent?”
It is therefore easy to envision a future in which magic mushrooms could have to be consumed in such small doses that even slight deviations away from the desired amounts might bring about extremely challenging trips. It would seem ironic if the success of the psychedelic movement in mainstreaming psychedelics had the inadvertent effect of making mushrooms too psychedelic. “Maybe we’re missing the point if we’re just trying to create stronger and stronger mushroom experiences by measuring the psilocybin content,” says Walker. “The real value is in the ceremony and the ability to communicate with the mushroom itself.”
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