PF Stropharia

Yachaj describes the PF Stropharia

The PF Stropharia combines a great sporulation capacity with an easily printable cap (no slimey veil remnants hanging from it), an extremely agressive mycelium, strong blueing of the flesh, a solid stem and a top notch harvest on PF Substrate (usually in bouquets of smaller potent mushrooms instead of a few weak large ones). It is a winner on all qualities which are important for a cubie except for its pinning speed (PF Classic is faster).

Please help to preserve this unique Psilocybe cubensis race. Spread its spores as prolific as possible but - do not change the name PF Stropharia. This genotype was a present from me to PF. Everybody may distribute its spores, but the name stays. - do not change the substrate. This is a PF TEK / hippie tek only cubie!

The origin of the PF Stropharia

At this moment there are two versions of the story. According to my notes the PF Stropharia was born in January 1997. It came up in a jar of PF Substrate which was gamma ray sterilized instead of steam sterilized. The difference between cold and hot sterilization is that in cold sterilizations (with gamma flash) the substrate remains raw. The mycelia have a slight difficulty in colonizing it and pinning is delayed. This is not an advantage so I terminated the gamma flash experiments, but according to my notes the PF Stropharia came up from one of those jars - from PF Classic spores obtained from PF in 1995.

But as anyone can see, the PF Stropharia looks very different from the PF Classic. It has scales on the cap while the PF Classic is smooth. It has a ring around the stem, the mycelium is much denser. It doesn't look like a PF Classic offspring at all.

So PF's explanation of this that I made a mistake. That the PF Stropharia is a genotype I received from someone else and that I mislabeled the jars.

When I look at the mushroom I would say that PF is right. His explanation is the most simple one and in science the simplest explanations are usually right. The Stropharia is too different from the Classic to be offspring. But at the same time this explanation is difficult fo me to accept because I didn't have so many different cubies back then. I had only 2 cubies which liked PF Substrate (the PF classic and the 'Amazonian' from the Hawaiian vendor Pacific Exotic Spora which PF now distributes under the name 'Hawaiian'). So if I mislableled the jar then still the origin of the PF Stropharia is a mystery.

The meaning of PF "Stropharia"

The name PF refers to Psylocybe Fanaticus, the inventor of the substrate which this cubensis race seems to like best. Stropharia refers to the appearance of it. The veil which protects the spores during the first stage of the mushroom growth sticks to the stem when he cap unfolds, leaving a ring. This looks like a belt. Stropharia means Swortbelt in Greek.

Yachaj

This is an invitro fruiting in a drinking glass. Photo from Yachaj - also published in the Entheogen Review article by Yachaj - "Mushroom cultivation - from falconer to Fanaticus and beyond".

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