The OFFICIAL Stone producer/sclerotia thread and discussion

Here is an overdue log of a rare find that was sent to me by Doc9151 over a year ago of the first Psilocybe tampanensis to be discovered in Florida since Steven Pollock's single specimen was discovered in Tampa, Florida back in the late 1970's. Doc's finds were also the first recorded wild finds with actual sclerotia attached to a few of the specimens. It was logged on mushroom observer with DNA confirmed by Alan Rockefeller here - https://mushroomobserver.org/317458?q=12BpO

Here are some of Doc's photos of some of the finds -

For an interesting insight into Steven Pollock's life, death and for the story of his only find of the sclerotia producing Psilocybe he named 'tampanensis' in Florida in 1977, I highly recommend taking the time to read through this amazing article by Hamilton Morris - https://harpers.org/archive/2013/07/blood-spore/

The link to Doc1951's original finds and subsequent follow up threads can be found here - https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/25225634/fpart/1/vc/1, here - https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/25244269 and here - https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/25406226

A huge thank you to Doc1951 for the honour of working with these rare finds!

:mushroom2:

I received the spore print of two specimens, labelled -

#1= Psilocybe tampanensis, location perdido river usa,
#2= Psilocybe tampanensis location Beulah fl usa, this is (from) the specimens Alan did the DNA analysis on.

I got around to plating up several dishes from each specimen on the 14th November 2019 -

Noticed the first signs of growth on the 19th of November -

And these were some photos I uploaded of the plates on the 3rd of December -

Transfers were taken to fresh plates of some of the fastest looking growth from each specimen -

I used a small transfer from a dark patch of agar from specimen #2 to start a small jar of sorghum. The assumption was that this may have been the start of a sclerotia and I was trying to isolate some sclerotia producing genetics. One week later the jar had colonised and growth looked very clean so was transferred to a large spawn bag of sorghum on the 11th December 2019 -

I then chose multiple clean sectors away from the inoculation sites from each multispore plate of specimen #1 to a grain jar, and repeated for specimen #2 - to capture as much genetic diversity as possible from each specimen to be able to hunt for the best looking sclerotia from each for cloning. I made 3 jars in total... two from specimen #1, and one from specimen #2 -

Im aware of the risk of working with T1's of wild plates, but i had clean transfers on fresh plates as back ups and am just using these jars to look for the best truffles for cloning. For that reason using lots of sectors and capturing a larger sample range of MS genetics was beneficial for a range of sclerotia, and all growth looked clean. I also isolated away from the inoculation sites to minimise any piggy back contaminations from the point of inoculation, but all T1 jars colonised fine.

The large spawn bag colonised in 3 days -

I noticed the first sclerotia forming in one of the jars after about 2 weeks -

After this I left the jars and spawn bag to do their thing in the back of a cupboard and forgot about them.

:mushroom2:

This is how things were progressing as of the 17 February 2020 -

And the bag -

Life got very busy and they were left to mature over winter and do their thing.

:mushroom2:

The extra time seemed to help as they really plumped up and developed a lot over the course of winter and here is how the bag is looking now -

The colonised grain jars are looking very mature and I am hoping to crack them open very soon to find the best sclerotia for cloning. I plan to grow out the best looking sclerotia from each specimen and then try and fruit each of those clones and take prints. This is how the grain jars are looking now -

Specimen #1 -

Specimen #2 -

Another jar of specimen #1 -

I'll also try and fruit what is leftover after harvesting the truffles from each jar with the aim of getting some early fresh prints of each specimen for preservation.

I'll update with pictures as soon as I get time to harvest and take clones of the best looking sclerotia and with a bio-assay result. :tripping:

Thanks again to Doc9151 for the chance to work with these amazing and rare finds! :thumbup:

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