Results of the first Psychedelic Club of Denver Mushroom Competition (Patreon)

With four separate psychedelic "testing events" now (Cultivar Cup, Hyphae Cup, Island Cup, and Psychedelic Cup), some of which run twice a year, you can pretty much get anything you want tested in a public event like these now year round which is a "win" for growers, researchers, and anyone interested in learning from the free collective data!

This latest event was the first of its kind in the Denver community, and was specific to that region as all entries had to be dropped off in person. Colorado of course being one of just two states that has currently decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms in the United States. Partly due to the legality, and also the fact that the biggest psychedelic conference in world history with over 12,000 in attendance happened in Denver just months before this event, it is understandable that enthusiasm was high and sample collection hit a new record for this type of event, with 511 sample entries!

As a result, the data obtained from this event is unprecedented.  For now the data was released without commentary in the form of an excel spreadsheet.  I thought it would be fun to take a closer look and add some of my own commentary.  I modified the spreadsheet to add a new column for psilocybin equivalent which as I've explained many times before, just converts the psilocin into psilocybin based on molecular weight and adds that to the psilocybin number, which gives us the most accurate grand total for "potency".  I then sorted the spreadsheet descending on that value.  I like that you can also filter by species so you can easily see results from only one species at a time if you'd like.  Here is a link to my version of the spreadsheet. Please note that I actually made some corrections and enhancements to the data after talking to several of the winners and getting more details.

I LOVE that they collected lots of information as part of their submission process, so you can see what substrate ingredients were used, how they were dried, how LONG they were dried and at what temperature, how they were stored, supplements used, cultivar name and where it came from, grow equipment, etc.  If any of the other Cup people are reading this, you should consider doing something like this to further enhance the value of future data collected and maybe even add more to the list like fruiting temps, humidity levels, lighting, etc.  The more information gathered, the more we can learn from the results.

Here is a look at the most potent samples:

It looks like TTBVI pan cyans once again had a clean sweep of the top 3 most potent samples submitted.  Also the actual HPLC tested potency values were extremely close to the top 3 samples that won the prior Cultivar Cup (they were also all TTBVI).  That gives even more evidence that these results are both accurate and reproducible and further establishes that pan cyan is still the most potent species in the world that we currently know about.  I'm not sure if the winning entry (Fontaine) got their spores from me since he did not disclose, but it wouldn't surprise me since I've given away so many prints 😇

The 4th place finisher came in at 2.77% potency which is impressive for a cube (the average cube in this event tested at 0.86%), this grower told me it was a mutant/blob with no real fruit bodies, here is a picture:

So probably wouldn't be very easy to reproduce.  I don't personally have much interest in mutants but its fun to see what others' are coming up with. Toque F8 (Nerds) is an isolate of Tidal Wave. 5th place was another mutant strain of cubensis.

I noticed that the overall most potent sample (a pan cyan) was also dried in the least amount of time, just 3 hours, compared to all other samples.  This is something I've mentioned in the past, using higher temps and removing from the dehydrator once it's cracker dry seems like an ideal way to preserve the alkaloids and now we have one more example of this.

I noticed there were also some weaker pan cyans in the results, one of which even tested below 1% (Australian genetics).  Despite the fact that pan cyans are the most potent known species of mushroom, it should be understood that potency varies a LOT between cultivars and in fact several people outside of the United States have reached out to me requesting I send them genetics (spores) because the pan cyans in their home country are actually pretty weak.  Likewise, different cultivars have far different profiles of growth on agar, grain, and substrate, with the best genetics rapidly colonizing all three mediums, while inferior genetics are slow and fragile.

There was a single submission of the P. tampanesis species in this event. Its potency was 0.04% which literally wins the prize for weakest mushroom tested (I guess maybe a tongue in cheek category). Several people over time have asked for my thoughts on tampanesis, and I always respond that I don't have much interest in it. It is typically pretty weak although this particular specimen was unusually weak 😂

There were two entries for Subtropicalis, both tested quite weak at 1.05% and 0.85%. I still have mixed feelings about that species but a patron has sent me what he believes are top genetics, so I hope to conduct further research. Jury is still out, but I do think the species is interesting. When I previously grew it, it tested at a much more potent 2.37% but it took so long to grow and output so poor that I could not recommend it at the time (see this post).

There were 15 natalensis samples submitted, sadly, not a single one tested above 0.9% and the average was just 0.6% which seems low to me considering my own samples have tested at a significantly more potent 1.2%. Regardless, anecdotes are very positive for this species so it is still of great interest to me, I continue to research this species and will publish more about it in the future.

I thought it was interesting that 2 samples (an Australian Pan Cyan and a B+ Cube) tested positive for Bufotenin (5-HO-DMT). This substance is more commonly associated with toads, not mushrooms, and interestingly enough one of these submissions was named "toad" so whoever sent that one in must have been aware of this. I would love to speak with this person if they happen to read this.  That said, while this is mildly interesting, the bufotenin level was so tiny that in all likelihood it probably wouldn't have any affect whatsoever on the person consuming these mushrooms, it's more of just a curiosity.  [Funny update: it turns out "Toad" is actually one of my patrons, and his nickname is literally "Toad" and he had no idea there was going to be Bufotenin in his sample! Crazy coincidence I suppose 😂 he said the reason his sample tested so high in psilocin is because the sample was one year old and by then most of the psilocybin had turned into psilocin.  Considering the age of this sample it was quite potent at 1.94% PCBE, original spreadsheet has wrong harvest date, I corrected 2023 to 2022 in my copy for science/research purposes]

Six samples tested above 0.2% for baeocystin, all of these were pan cyans, at least four (maybe five) of which were from growers who got their genetics from me.  But we still don't have much reason to believe baeocystin plays a significant role in one's user experience. See this article for more details.  There is an interesting theory however that "baeocystin could potentially exert a synergistic effect with psilocin/psilocybin by competing for MAO, effectively increasing psilocin concentration in the blood".

Likewise only a single sample tested with elevated aeruginascin (just 0.11%) and again it was the TTBVI pan cyan.  We don't know a lot about aeruginascin but it does not appear to cross the blood brain barrier despite some anecdotes that suggest it could be associated with feelings of euphoria (see: https://psychedelicreview.com/aeruginascin-psilocybin-derivative/ ).

Another potentially interesting inference from this treasure trove of data is that at least according to analysis done by Altitude Consulting (the lab that did the testing) both manure and gypsum are positively correlated with higher potency.  According to them, manure boosts potency the most, followed by gypsum. I have long recommended both (for pan cyans) and both are in my Pan Cyan TEK.  Note: use well aged manure, not the fresh stuff shown in the above pic! 😇 That said I performed my own analysis in an attempt to confirm these findings and I could not confirm the correlation between manure and potency based on the data provided but did in fact confirm the correlation between using gypsum and higher potency.  I suspect Altitude made mistakes in their analysis, the first being that they only looked at psilocybin, it is preferable to look at psilocybin equivalent for this analysis. The second mistake I believe they made was by looking at the totality of data instead of doing the analysis by species.  EVERY SINGLE pan cyan entry was grown on manure, and since this is the most potent species in the known world, that skews the overall data high for the correlation between manure and potency in the overall view of all samples.  It would have been interesting if there had been some pan cyans NOT grown on manure, but without such a comparison you can't draw conclusions, so the most logical thing to do is just look at the cubes alone.  When I only looked at the cubensis entries, there was a very nice number of entries with and without manure for comparison purposes.  Interestingly, the samples that used manure have a slightly lower average potency than those that did NOT use manure, but the difference is not statistically significant. So jury is still out on this idea but I'm definitely interested in more science around this.  However I DID confirm the correlation between gypsum and potency, the average potency of a cubensis mushroom where gypsum was used was 0.9% while the average where gypsum was not used was 0.8% (any entry where no substrate ingredients were listed was removed from consideration).  The sample sizes in both cases were quite large so I'm fairly confident in the inference made here that gypsum likely boosts potency.  When looking at the pan cyans, ALL of the top three most potent samples used gypsum, so that's certainly evidence that gypsum boosts potency in pan cyans but obviously with a sample size of just 3, it's premature to draw conclusions. (UPDATE: A new published study supports the use of gypsum to boost potency, see "The effect of casing and gypsum on the yield and psychoactive tryptamine content of Psilocybe cubensis")

There is a need to do proper scientific "A/B" comparison testing of different supplements with much more rigorously controlled grows, same exact genetics grown simultaneously in the same exact conditions with only the supplement in question being different between them (one variable), and then doing the same exact harvest timing, drying, and storage, then homogenize and test several samples of the homogenized powder from each grow. That is the only way to really put these ideas to the test. And even then, you only have one comparison trial, its best to have multiple such comparison trials. I would love to see a large data set of pan cyans grown with and without gypsum (or with and without other supplements of interest like coffee grounds, calcium, worm castings, blue lights, straw vs coir, etc).

Another great finding from this data is that using desiccant in your storage container is correlated with higher psilocybin levels and higher overall potency.  This makes sense since water + enzymes are responsible for the dephosphorylation of psilocybin.  If you get the mushrooms truly "cracker dry" there should not be much water left but its very hard to get every last bit of moisture out, so using desiccant is probably a good idea.  I also like to use a few seconds from a  heat gun to drive out the remaining moisture just before I seal a jar shut, also warming up a mason jar a bit first will cause it to vacuum seal.

And finally, this data suggests there might be a link between freeze drying and higher potency levels.  This idea is controversial however, and the number of samples submitted that were freeze dried was small (only 14) so its not a good idea to draw conclusions without further study.  The 14 samples did average potency levels however that were considerably higher than the overall average (1.3% compared to 0.85% when you include cubes and nats).  It seems likely that freeze drying is a good way to drive away all moisture and preserve the alkaloids, but the most popular unit (Harvest Right) costs up to $3,000 and may not actually be superior to proper and fast dehydration with a standard moving air dehydrator.  MagicMyco had an HPLC testing client who did the most careful experiment I've seen so far, where he cut individual fruit bodies in half and freeze dried one half and dehydrated the other halves with a regular food dehydrator and the result was that the regular dehydrator halves ended up testing slightly more potent.  This leads me to question the value of freeze dryers for alkaloid preservation.  One published study also noted that freeze drying seemed to destroy alkaloids but their exact methods were unclear and I do not think the difference in alkaloids should be very large if properly freeze dried compared to using a food dehydrator.  From my perspective a freeze dryer is not worth the investment unless you have plans to use it a lot for other purposes.  But I would definitely like to see more comparison studies performed on freeze drying mushrooms.

With gratitude,

Gordo

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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.