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A spore print is what results when you leave the caps of fully grown mushrooms for a while. This is because the caps slowly but surely release all their spores. You can think of spores as the seeds of mushrooms. Spore prints are sought after by more experienced growers, because you can not only grow your own mushrooms from scratch. In fact, you can also select and further breed mushrooms for certain characteristics and discover whole new strains. Super cool, in other words.
About the Cubensis Mushroom Strain McKennaii
The McKennaii Magic Mushroom (Psilocybe cubensis McKennaiia) is one of the most popular mushrooms today and very suitable as a first introduction to a mushroom trip. McKennaiis known as a mild strain, which is not to say that its psychedelic effects should be underestimated. The McKennaii is one of the strains that develops both truffles and magic mushrooms.
A McKennaii magic mushroom trip is usually experienced as euphoric. A free feeling where colours are perceived more intensely and mild hallucinations may occur. A relaxing magic mushroom trip can give you new insights into yourself or others. The active substances of magic mushrooms include psilocybin and psilocin, but these are only created when you grow mushrooms from this liquid culture.
Mushroom Spore Print Use
Here's how to germinate mushroom spores in five steps.
Shopping list
- Agar-agar
- Petri dish
- Knife
- Tape (preferably) parafilm
Step 1
Wash your hands thoroughly and fill a sterile petri dish with sterile agar-agar. You can sterilise in a pressure cooker, for example.
Step 2
Heat a knife in a flame to disinfect it. Let the knife cool down. Open the spore print packaging.
Step 3
You only need a small amount of spores. Take a knife tip of spores and place it in the centre of the petri dish.
Step 4
Close the petri dish and place it at room temperature in a dark environment (important). Close the spore print packaging again. You can store these in the fridge indefinitely, in principle.
Step 5
After a few days, the petri dish begins to turn white. Wait until the whole dish is white with fungal threads.
Dan: Making Liquid Culture
A sterile environment is very important. Also, only take a petri dish that has turned completely white. Is the dish visibly contaminated with other colours? Then discard those contents and start again with the steps above. This happens to even the best lab technicians.
Put agar-agar in a tightly sealable, sterile jar and dilute with boiled and cooled water. The ratio is ideally 4% agar-agar to 96% water; slightly less strong than 1 to 20 so. Make another knife hot and let it cool. Open the petri dish and cut out a piece of about a square centimetre and put it in the jar with agar-agar and water. Seal the jar tightly and put it in a dark place at room temperature. This step can take several days to weeks.
Next: Growing Mushrooms
When your liquid culture contains a sizable flake of cloudy mycelium, it is ready for use. The culture can be used to inoculate the chosen substrate. Take sterile unpolished rice or rye, for example. Let the culture grow in the substrate at room temperature. Within a few days, the mycelium will form as snow-white microscopic threads. After that, shake the jar every day to speed up the process until the whole jar is filled with a white layer.
Once you have a pot of substrate that is coloured all white, you can carefully remove (don't touch) the substrate from the pot. You can do several things with the substrate. For example, graft a new pot with sterile, uncolonised substrate or empty the contents into a clean plastic container filled with perlite. Provide fresh air by making a few holes in the container or opening the lid from time to time. Also, make sure there is always condensation on the inside of the container by spraying the container walls with a plant sprayer on the mist setting every day.
Are Spore Prints and Liquid Culture Legal?
The legality of spore prints and liquid culture depends on where you live, but also what you do with them. In countries where mushroom grow kits and magic truffles are not legal, it is often allowed to get these two unique products. Provided they are meant to be studied under a microscope. But are they meant for cultivation? Then they often fall under the category of prohibited substances.
Dosage and use
A dose of dried mushrooms is between 1 and 5 grams. This depends heavily on your desired intensity. 5 grams of dried mushrooms is an incredibly strong dose that anecdotally makes you feel like you're looking into the eye of a hurricane. Definitely not for inexperienced psychonauts. Fresh mushrooms are also edible, but for many not so appetising. Then, with these mushrooms, you need about 10 times as much for the same effect. Quite a meal, in other words. Whatever you do, do not heat mushrooms or put them in the freezer. This destroys the active substances. You can read how to dry them in our blogs.
Always use magic mushrooms and magic truffles in a safe setting - preferably at home on the couch with someone who knows how to act when you are not feeling well. Let the trip come over you. Put some soothing music on and enjoy what these special natural products show you.
Do not combine with alcohol, medication, or other (smart) drugs.
In the fridge, liquid culture keeps for several months. Outside the refrigerator, it has a very limited shelf life.
Please note that this product cannot be exchanged as the shelf life is limited and the product must be kept refrigerated.