Psilocybe subtropicalis: My research and review (Patreon)

[Thanks and shout out to patron KnighthawkJosh for the cool art, other pictures in this post are mostly for illustration purposes only, some generated by AI]

Psilocybe subtropicalis has been recommended to me by multiple people in the past, some of whom believe it is the most potent mushroom in the world or at least a contender. The positive user experiences, enthusiastic recommendations, and rumors of potency all piqued my interest, it's a species I have been wanting to research for quite some time.  I had previously obtained spores quite a while back, but they would not germinate (one reputable collector tells me that subtropicalis spores are only viable for 6 to 12 months but this may be a trait that is specific to certain genetic lines).  Since that time, another patron "Tim" from the Netherlands sent me a fresher subtropicalis print which upon receipt I immediately put to agar.  I think it was at least a week if not two before I noticed any growth at all, and it remained less than dime size for weeks!  It's growth was absurdly slow, after about 6 weeks in an incubator at 85F (29C) if looked about like this:

I was worried if I waited much longer the agar might dry out so I decided to put some cuttings to grain at this point.  It was slow on grain as well, but eventually completely colonized a couple of jars: beautiful, slightly unusual looking, snow white on grain:

From there I used pan cyan coir based substrate that was sterilized in a pressure cooker along with the growing trays themselves and tongs used later for mixing. I didn't want to take any chances with this grow so everything was done in front of a laminar flow box and only sterile objects ever touched the substrate and grain. The inoculated substrate trays were covered and incubated at 82F (28C) until fully colonized (I believe this took about a week) and were then cased (same casing described in the pan cyan TEK) and placed into a martha (mini greenhouse) for fruiting.

Again it was slow, but eventually pins appeared:

This is what it looked like 80 days after I first put spores to agar:

For what its worth, I have since learned from a reputable source that there are two distinct genetic lines circulating amongst mycology hobbyists and collectors, one of these lines (the one I had) is super slow growing and produces spores that apparently do not remain viable as long.  The other line of genetics actually grows much faster and apparently does not have the same issue with spore viability either.  So if you are going to grow this species, I would highly recommend looking for the faster genetics.

Also note that I was just "winging it" when I grew these, without doing much research beforehand.  I have since learned that this species does much better with LESS fresh air exchange. It does NOT need a lot of fresh air (in fact, doesn't like it).  It is quite possible to get huge dense flushes by growing them more like cubes, in totes with lids cracked a bit, for example here is a picture from Reddit user MojaveMyc:

Here are some more tips he sent me: "From spawn to bulk substrate, the fast lineage fruits between 2 weeks-1 month. The slow lineage can take up to three months.  I grow them in unmodded 6 & 16qt shoeboxes. 100% passive fresh air exchange (FAE) through the gap between the tub & lid. I dubtub (put an empty tote of the same exact size over top of the fruiting tub to double its height) once the pin set is in & slightly increase FAE until maturity."

When asked about the quality of the subtropicalis experience, MojaveMyc says: "They’re very potent, 0.6g gets me to level 4 (I’m sensitive). The open eyed visuals (OEVs) & closed eyed visuals (CEVs) are unique in a way I will surely fail to explain lol.  I find cubes tamps & pans to be therapeutic, nats recreational. Subtropicalis is spiritual. I'll save you the woo, but it takes me deeper than anything else I’ve tried. Reality isn’t bent, it’s replaced with a new one altogether. I only consume them once a year."

It's always nice to run into other people who are as sensitive to psychedelics as I am, I consider this attribute a special gift, I do not take for granted.

OK, so the first thing I did once I had some fruit bodies was to properly dry them (around 3 hours at 160F) then seal them in a glass mason jar filled with Argon and I sent a sample off to a lab for analysis (I'm not playing favoritism when it comes to labs, I like comparing labs and trying to make sure the community has access to accurate testing, I've worked with all of these labs and recommend them: MagicMyco, Tryptomics, Altitude Consulting, Tryp Labs).  This particular report just happened to be produced by Altitude:

With psilocybin at 1.72 and psilocin at 0.47 that means psilocybin equivalent (PSBE) of 1.72 + (0.47 * 1.39) = 2.37%

So it is quite potent but not as potent as a good pan cyan.  It also did contain a decent bit of the minor alkaloid baeocystin which might be important, we don't really know.

Just for the purposes of cross checking this result, I looked up a lab test result from Tryp Labs for a completely different sample of subtropicalis and I found this report:

His 2.30% PCBE is extremely close to my own test result, his sample was also reasonably high in baeocystin.

OK, so I've covered growing and testing, you know about what level of potency you can expect, but can the testing really tell you the whole story?  I'm not even a fan of trip reports, because they are highly dependent on set, setting, and dosage and the same exact mushrooms can be associated with wildly different experiences even for the same person.  So if you don't like trip reports either, you can stop reading now.  But I'll just tell you briefly about what I experienced when trying this species for the first time...

I harvested about 7 or 8 of those tiny mushrooms. As an aside, I would really like to see some research done on the differences in alkaloids between fresh and dried mushrooms because most people agree that fresh mushrooms are considerably more potent if you were to just compare for example the same exact pre-drying weights of each dose.  For example lets say 10g fresh dries to 1g dry, if you were to compare the 10g fresh dose vs the 1g dried dose, the fresh does feels a lot stronger which implies that something is lost in drying, but exactly what is lost is unknown, perhaps its just the psilocin being destroyed which is entirely plausible, also some of the psilocybin would likely be dephosphorylated during those hours in the dehydrator.  As a rule, I do not encourage anyone to eat fresh mushrooms because its much harder to determine the dosage, there is no homogenization, and also it can be difficult to know if those fresh mushrooms were fully hydrated or partly dried, one mushroom's alkaloids can vary significantly from another even in the same batch, etc.  If you want a reliable dosage they should always be dried and blended up for homogenization.  That said, when I want to do a small test dose of something I will sometimes eat the fresh mushrooms, the reason being that I'll be OK if the dosage is stronger than expected since I'm not taking a large dose to begin with, and part of me wants to experience the raw, unblemished, unprocessed version of the mushroom first to get a better sense of a species if that makes sense.

So I took these 7 or 8 small mushrooms that fit in the palm of one hand:

(for illustration only, these are not subtropicalis mushrooms)

And I popped them into my mouth and swallowed them whole with water, I didn't even chew them, they were small enough to just wash right down in two gulps of water.

Nearly an hour had passed and I felt nothing. I didn't think anything was going to happen so I went out for a walk in nature.  I heard some frogs, then heard some rain falling, but weirdly it wasn't actually raining (it had rained earlier in the day so I figured maybe it was just drops falling from the trees as they blew in the wind).  Still, I didn't feel anything "mushroomy" or psychedelic.  I went back home and laid down with some music playing over headphones.

When I closed my eyes, I could see some light visuals starting.  My room was dark, and I could feel my cat jump up on the bed and walk over to me so I reached over and pet him for a little bit without opening my eyes.  Then I felt my cat put one paw on my chest, and I thought "that's weird, he doesn't usually do that, but its kind of nice, almost like he's giving me his blessing to have a good journey".

But the cat's paw was on my chest for so long I just had to open my eyes and that's when I realized there was no cat! Haha, wow, OK so then it kind of started to dawn on me that these mushrooms are legit and I'm going to have a real deal experience 😂🙏😇

The minor visuals progressed into a full blown, deep experience that lasted for a couple of hours.  It was quite pleasant with very beautiful visuals and pleasant body feel.  I received some powerful, personal and meaningful messages as well related to 4 separate people in my life. In one vision I was encouraged to reach out to a friend with a specific message of encouragement. In another I was shown how to improve an important relationship with a family member. Definitely a great overall experience, I was surprised that such a small quantity took me as far as it did.

Like MojaveMyc described, this experience was very spiritual for me.  That said, I'm still a bit on the fence about recommending this species ONLY because it is much slower to grow than pan cyan and also slightly less potent.  The advantages to it however are that it can be grown in unmodified totes, you can use just coir/verm substrate (no manure), it is associated with positive experience reports, it is potent, and if you can find the fast variant genetics, it can probably be grown in a similar timeframe to other species.

Don't ask me for subtropicalis prints, I did not even bother to make any as I felt the genetics I had were clearly not the best out there.  If anyone has the fast variant that you would like to have further researched, please private message me, I would be interested in a print but only if you can confirm it is definitely the fast growing genetic line.  For now, I will keep subtropicalis on my short list of "species of interest".

With much gratitude!

-Gordo

UPDATED TO ADD: I had actually asked MojaveMyc ahead of time what it was that made this species worth growing especially if it is slower and less potent than pan cyans. He did not respond and I did NOT read his or ANYONE else’s trip reports before I tried it myself. I had no expectations whatsoever. Only AFTER my own experience did I find MojaveMyc’s comments and then I followed up with him and he told me the reason he didn’t respond initially was because he didn’t want to influence my experience (good for him!). That said… The scientist in me doesn't want to give in to the temptation of characterizing an entire species based on just my own personal experience or other anecdotes. I think you can have deep or shallow experiences depending on set, setting, and dosage. Attitude has a lot to do with it (which is part of mindSET). If I'm in a serious mood, listening to spiritual music, and expecting a spiritual experience, I'm probably going to get that type of experience regardless of the species I consumed.  If I'm in a happy mood and joking around and laughing and/or listening to goofy or fun music, I'm going to have a totally different type of experience regardless of species consumed. Let's be rational about this! 😇💙🙏

It would be fantastic to see someone do a carefully designed double blind study where different species were given to the same people maybe spaced 2 weeks or one month apart, psilocybin equivalent doses being equal every time.  Then we could analyze the data to see if any conclusions can actually be drawn about differences in both side effects, experience reports, and perceptions from the study participants.  The data would undoubtedly be noisy, but if enough people were involved perhaps statistically significant observations could be made.  I don't even take my own anecdotes too seriously.  I would bet that set, setting, and dose will prove more important than species of mushroom consumed when it comes to the quality of the experience as well as side effects.  Also certain people seem more susceptible to negative side effects like body load, anxiety, and nausea compared to other people and this may or may not have anything to do with species selected.  Anecdotes are very unreliable without scientific backing.

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Links to all of my TEKs, Videos, Trip music, and frequently asked questions with answers can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22774475 (everything is made available for FREE, I do not use pay walls, support the work only if you feel like you've benefited from it and you are able to do so).  People have told me my work has helped them overcome depression, addictions, PTSD, relationship issues, direction in life, and to have important, meaningful, sometimes life changing mystical experiences.  I feel honored and blessed to play a small role in this.  That is my reward.