Growing Psychedelic Truffles

Growing psychedelic truffles is fun, educational, and a great way for psychonauts to access them. Since spores and grow kits don’t contain psilocybin, they’re usually easier to access than truffles or mushrooms themselves.

You can choose to use a grow kit or grow them from scratch — either way, you’ll be adding a great hobby to your life.

And contrarily to what you might think, growing psychedelic truffles is actually easier than growing shrooms (but it does take longer).

Growing Psychedelic Truffles

Psychedelic truffles can be grown in an artificial environment, just like mushrooms — this makes it possible for anyone to grow them at home.

All you need is the right supplies, knowledge, and a lot of patience!

The trick is to grow psychedelic mushrooms spores (from a mushroom strain that does produce truffles, obviously!) in a humid and sterile environment that doesn’t allow mushrooms to thrive.

This way, the mushroom is forced to create and keep growing the psychedelic truffles. They should be harvested when they reach their maximum possible size — which takes many months. It takes up to 12 weeks just to form dense truffles.

It’s actually easier to grow psychedelic truffles than mushrooms because they’re much more resistant to external factors.

If the growing conditions, such as temperature and moisture level, aren’t ideal, truffles will still grow while mushrooms won’t. It’s also more discreet to grow truffles since they’re underground.

We asked Lilli Steingraeber, the director of ProviThor and a pioneer microdosing entrepreneur, if she had any recommendations for people looking to grow their own psychedelic truffles. She believes that “self-growing magic truffles makes no sense. Rather, grow magic mushrooms! Growing truffles takes many months, growing mushrooms only takes some weeks.”

It’s easy [to grow truffles] but not spectacular like watching mushrooms grow. And it takes 10-18 months — from spore to truffle. You can grow [truffles] from truffles as well, then it’s a little faster, but you’d need a lab.

Lilli Steingraeber

Still, you can easily grow your own truffles as long as you’re patient. No matter if mycology is just a hobby for you or you want to be a self-sustainable psychonaut, we’ll teach you how.

Magic Truffles Growing — Pros & Cons of Growing from Scratch

First of all, when you grow from scratch you have more control — you can add or take substrate to grow more or fewer truffles and you can grow them indoors or outdoors.

While growing indoors is easier because you have more control over the conditions, Cheri Walsh, the founder and owner of Truffle Magic, says that growing outdoors produces “more potent magic truffles because they mimic the natural environment where these hallucinogenic fungi grow.”

Buying spores may also be easier than buying grow kits. Since spores don’t contain any psilocybin, their transport and sale are legal.

And last but not least, you’ll feel a much greater connection if you grow from scratch than with grow kits. It just hits different when you see something grow from almost nothing.

Now for cons: well, it’ll take a lot of time and patience. The hardest thing about it is making sure the conditions (especially temperature) are correct and keeping everything sterile.

Magic Truffles — How to Grow Them from Scratch

If you’re convinced the pros outweigh the cons and growing from scratch is the way to go, here’s how you can do it.

First of all, here are the supplies you’ll need:

• Either a spore syringe, spore print, or living mycelium from the strain you want to grow (obviously, you need to pick a Psilocybe strain that grows truffles)
• A pre-sterilized bag of rye
• Depending on where you live, you may need an incubator or an insulated heating mat

There are other options to using a pre-sterilized bag of rye, like creating your own substrate with grass seeds, a grow bag with a filter, and water, but you’d also need a pressure cooker. Using rye is much easier.

Now, on to the process:

1. It’s paramount that this whole process is clean. The pre-sterilized rye bag has a syringe port that allows you to inoculate the substrate without opening the bag.
   1. If you’re using live mycelium or a spore print make sure you use new latex groves to avoid contamination when placing them inside the bag.
2. Once the substrate is inoculated, shake it to spread the spores or mycelium throughout it.
3. The hardest part is already behind you, now you need to keep your mixture in a dark and warm place — ideally at 21 to 25 degrees Celsius. If you can’t guarantee this temperature where you live, you should use an insulated heating mat or incubator.
4. During the first two to four weeks, you’ll need to shake the bag once in a while — this is known as the initial colonization process.
5. Once the substrate is fully colonized, all you need is patience. No more shaking the bag, just waiting and making sure the growing conditions are perfect. The longer you let them grow, the bigger they’ll be. You should let them grow for three to four months.

On a final note, here’s a tip from the 24High team: “to grow truffles, it’s better to work with a vial of truffle spores” instead of a spore print or living mycelium. After preparing your sterilized substrate, “you can inject or drop the spores on it.”

Magic Truffles Growing — Pros & Cons of Using Grow Kits

The greatest pros of using grow kits are how easy it is and the fact that you’ll be able to harvest your “philosopher’s stones” much quicker — we’re talking harvesting in a matter of days vs. months!

As for cons, obviously, you won’t feel the same connection to these little fungi as you would if you grew them from scratch, and you also won’t have the same level of control. You’ll grow an established number of truffles—no way for you to get more or less from it.

Magic Truffles — How to Grow Them With a Grow Kit

The supplier you buy grow kits from should provide information on the expected psilocybin content they’ll have and how to grow them. We won’t go into detail here since each grow kit works differently.

The reality is: when you use a magic truffle grow kit you aren’t really growing truffles. They’ve already developed almost fully and pretty much all you need to do is open the set, wait three days, and harvest them.

You’ll miss out on the experience a bit but, hey, it’s a great quick and easy fix to get super fresh truffles and trip your balls off.

Can I Legally Grow Psychedelic Truffles in America?

Psilocybe spores are illegal in California, Georgia, and Idaho — so, in these states, you can automatically assume that growing them is illegal and you’d have to resort to the black market to purchase spores.

Now, in the remaining states (with a few exceptions), any product containing psilocybin is illegal. So, growing spores into mature mushrooms or truffles is illegal.

In these “few exceptions,” psilocybin-containing products are illegal but decriminalized. This means that although illegal, authorities won’t enforce grave criminal penalties — you may get a fine or something similar.

So far, these are the places in the US where the possession, consumption, and cultivation of a small number of psychedelic truffles and mushrooms are decriminalized:

• Seattle, Washington
• Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Denver, Colorado
• Oakland and Santa Cruz, California
• Somerville and Cambridge, Massachusetts
• The state of Oregon
• Washington D.C.

And then there’s the interesting case of New Mexico: you can grow magic mushrooms and truffles from spores legally and consume them fresh. But if you dry and store them, you can be charged with intent to distribute.

Key Takeaways: Growing Psychedelic Truffles

Wouldn’t it be a dream come true always to have fresh magic truffles at hand? Well, now you can! Growing psychedelic truffles is fun, educational, and simple.

It’s much easier to buy spores or living mycelium online because they don’t contain psilocybin, making them legal in most places — then, you just have to make sure you’re discreet about it.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve ever grown psychedelic truffles or plan to do so.

Sources

1. Double Blind Mag — The Tragic Story Of Magic Truffles: The Elusive Wild Psilocybe
2. Medium: Cheri Walsh — Growing Truffles from Scratch vs. Grow Kits
3. Zamnesia — How to Grow Your Own Magic Truffles (From Scratch)
4. Quality Spores — Are Magic Mushroom Spores Legal in My State?

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