Qualityspores.store Knows How To Cross Mushroom Strains

As an amateur microscopist with an interest in mushroom-containing fungal spores and learning how to cross mushroom strains, you’ve probably done some research that prompted you to come across the special community online or in-person. Maybe you’ve even wanted to learn how to breed mushrooms or wanted to learn how to cross cubensis strains.

Mixing Mycelium Strains For Different Mushroom Strains and Effects

Generally one of the friendlier bunches of people you’re likely to meet, the special community, or “psychonauts” as some prefer to be called (those who explore their own minds), love discussing their interest in mushrooms and in mixing mycelium strains and in mushroom strains and effects. Some believe that cross strain mushrooms are “the best” while others believe that strains which have purportedly undergone less human manipulation since their original samples were harvested from the wild take the special cake.

Discover The Perfect Mushroom Cross-Strain For YOU

While we’re microscopists and mycologists first and foremost, if we had to throw our hat into the ring of this debate, we’d probably guess that there is no “best” or perfect mushroom cross-strain. People should simply enjoy whatever mushroom cross strains that work for them – everyone’s neurology, life experiences, and situation is different, and so different experiences are only natural to be expected.

Penis Envy Mushrooms

Having said that, if there was a contender for the best cross strain—or at least the most famous—it would probably be Albino Penis Envy, the “cousin” of the world-famous Penis Envy Mushrooms strain.

In today’s post on the Quality Spores blog, we’d like to take that topic and run with it. We’ll be discussing the following:

We’ll begin with a little necessary background information, which at the outset may seem a tad boring or mycologist-y, but it’s not all that bad. Then we’ll talk about PE and APE, the differences between a heroic dose and a microdose, and conclude by letting you know where to get your own spores for research.

Cross strain fungi mating

Understanding Mushroom Cross Strains Requires You to Understand How Fungi “Mate”

Fungi do not mate in the same way as mammals do, or even plants. It’s pretty wild when you start to look into it, and it explains the many, many, many varieties of fungi on our planet, including the many different kinds of mushrooms.

Fungi Facts

Mushrooms don’t have genders, at least not in the sense of male and female. For interesting fungi facts, the genome of a fungi has two specific locations where alleles form (alleles are genetic pairs). Two alleles form in each location, which mycologists call the alpha and beta alternates. The alpha alleles have 339 variants, and the beta alleles have 64 variants.

This, as you can imagine, makes for a lot of different possible combinations, which the fungi use to asexually fuse cells. In a manner of speaking, if a mycologist in a lab introduces new cells, and those cells are compatible with the others, a fusion can happen—what we would think of as mating. The cells mature into hyphae (a bit like the predecessor to mycelium), and at this stage can come together to form a completely new strain of fungi.

This is how Albino Penis Envy came to be, and—some believe—perhaps Penis Envy itself.

From Penis Envy to Albino Penis Envy – The Origins of The World’s Most Famous Cross Strain Mushroom

Legend has it that Terence McKenna, the famous ethnobotanist and author, discovered what would become the Penis Envy mushroom strain in the Amazon.

Qualityspores.store Hero Mushroom Cross-Strain

There’s some degree of debate here, with some researchers believing that he later took a mutant from that original strain which then became the Penis Envy strain, or that the Hero Mushroom Cross Strain called Hero strain he found in the Amazon was hybridized and the resulting fungi is Penis Envy (making Penis Envy a cross strain itself), and countless other theories.

It is, in fact, very hard to piece together the exact origins of the Penis Envy strain, but we do know that Terence McKenna is likely to be responsible for it and if the name is any indication that Terrence McKenna funny bits included a strong sense of humor.

Later, the mushroom cross strain Albino Penis Envy was developed by hybridizing Penis Envy with PF Albino. The result is really nothing short of miraculous (from the standpoint of the special world, at any rate), because APE is extremely potent. The extremely high content of this fungi exceeds even that of McKenna’s Penis Envy mushrooms, which were already known for their strength.

With these two very powerful strains, one would think that only the bravest among those in the special community, the most adventurous psychonauts if you will, would have any interest in partaking. However, microdosing these fungi has become very popular as well as microdosing exotic mushroom spores.

Albino Penis Envy Spores

Mushroom Microdosing vs. The Original Penis Envy Heroic Dose

A “heroic dose”, as described by McKenna, is about 5 grams of dried mushrooms. This, it’s said, is likely to contain enough to cause a very strong special experience if microdosing.

It’s important to keep in mind though that the precise dosage is difficult to determine, since even the mushrooms from the same batch, of the same strain, can contain differing levels. This is especially true with strong strains like PE or APE, which per-gram would likely contain more of the strain than the equivalent of a milder strain like, say, B+ cubensis.

Mushroom Strains to Microdose

Microdosing these stronger strains has become popular though, because working with these mushroom strains to microdose allows the individual to use less of the mushroom for the same effect. APE is more and more commonly being used as a mushroom for microdosing, and as mushrooms continue to become decriminalized and even legalized, this strain will likely become even more popular among those not necessarily interested in the “heroic” doses.

Doing Research on Mushroom Spores and on Cross-Strains?

If you’d like to conduct your own research on a cross-strain or look into mushroom cross strains, we carry a wide variety in our syringes. Mushroom spores are legal in most of the United States for research purposes, so get out those microscopes, scientists!