Hey everyone, thought I'd share what I've been up to during lockdown here. Despite being part of this community for years I don't think I've ever shared any of my various psychedelic projects for some reason.

So the liquid culture these came from was labeled as Golden Teachers, but they're very clearly not. I'm pretty sure they're AA+, but I'm new(ish) to this so if anyone here has a better idea please let me know! I spawned everything on rye and fruited in monotubs with horse poo, coir, verm, and coffee. Going forward I'll be simplifying and just using worm castings with verm and coir, since manure is already hard enough to source where I am when there's not a pandemic.

The first pic is from the first flush about a day after harvesting the biggest clusters. They get an adequate amount of natural light from a nearby window but I have the LEDs sitting around and I figured they can't hurt. I've since gotten a dehydrator but most of these fruits were dried by fan.

I know people say a cube is a cube is a cube, and I'm sure that's true. But interestingly enough these felt a lot more stimulating than other varieties I've had in the past. Mushrooms have always been heavy and sedating for me. Granted I've only tried these twice now and not at very high doses, so it could just be circumstantial.

I've got a few other genetics in the works but for now I hope you enjoy these pics of sexy fruits. I'm not sure if it's because I'm on my phone or not but I can't seem to embed pictures at all, which is a little dissapointing but here ya go!

Thanks Dao!

My knowledge of genetics, especially with mushrooms, is pretty basic. But my understanding is that if you're growing a strain from spores, each individual mushroom or cluster is a different phenotype (much like growing cannabis from seed). Each phenotype will have some slightly different characteristics that set it apart, whether it's how it looks physically or the alkaloid content. There definitely needs to be more research and I'd love to know, but I believe there's probably as much variation within a single "strain" of cubensis as there is across the species as a whole. Of course once you start taking tissue cultures and you get into cloning, then those genetic characteristics will be much more consistent. But again that has less to do with what "strain" you have and more to do with the fact you're just copying a single phenotype over and over.

Of course if anyone with more experience can speak to this, I'm very curious and would appreciate being corrected if I'm wrong.

Turns out both syringes were mislabeled (from the same source), so what was supposed to be PE looks a lot like what I think is Alacabenzi

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little annoyed but I can't really complain about a tub full of mushrooms. Here are some pics of the first 2 flushes, in no particular order

Oh well. What can ya do?
There are worse things.

Careful with those long stems if those were the PE labeled, the more recent varieties have that chunky stalk look like you have there and they can be potent! Looks like maybe a low FAE grow of melmac PE variety.

Nice tubs, great work!

I haven't had the opportunity to try these yet but I'll report back as soon as I do! These are from LC and definitely don't look like the variety in the pictures that the culture was supposed to be taken from, but I've got another tub going now I'll give more FAE to see if there's any difference.

After some trial and error I finally got my first flush of PE! The first attempt was mislabeled like I mentioned, and then I had some recurring issues with contams during my 2nd attempt. They seem to take quite a while to fruit but after 3 tries were well worth the wait. The tub didn't produce very evenly, they seem to be concentrated towards one side and popped up sporadically throughout the rest - but nonetheless I'm very happy with the results!

Here are some nice thicc n' sexy fruits for your viewing pleasure

Wowie!! Those last two are huuuge! Congrats.